Bloogies, once every million years or so when the stars all aline and Palestine and Jerusalem are in peace, your Rastafarian Noodle thinks upon something desperate. I am no Ghandi. I did not take part of the writing of the constitution. I have never had a upper experience with a celestial being. But I like to think, once in a while my thoughts collect something worth writing down and pondering. So instead of the usual gags and verbal fluff you are used to, i'd like to get right to the meat of my question.
As someone enters the age of 16, 17, or 18 we are posed by the question that has plagued us through aunts, uncles, and pretentious parentals most of our life; What are you going to do when you grow up?
Of course there are those from the start that know right away; "I want to be involved in biotechnological nueroscience research!" And then there are more of what i like to call the Fuzzes (fuzzy on their future); they have an idea but aren't totally sure. And then there are the breed of the stunted, clueless, and astounded, which I refer to as the Lost. I am one of these and my question adresses we of the Lost most of all.
Now there are many reasons to look at your future and see a blank map. My reason is the more then enormous field of poignant questions standing in my path. We of the Lost realize the hardest part about the question: What are you going to do when you grow up?
Is it opens much more mind-blowing ideas: What are you going to do for the rest of your life? You better like it because other wise your doomed and etc.... etc...... etc....
And so this simple little question has become the gross monster of mental anguish, and so we are LOST. Not the excellent series, no, but lost. And though, I can't ask for all the Lost present, I'd like to think your answers to my question will help some of them.
My question being: Can one live happy and succesful at the same time?
I ask this of course because of the astounding amount of examples that say you can't. Einstien was a brilliant successful person, but he was only successful. His personal life was pocked with holes. For he had spent his time on Earth going toward the endeavors of his mind instead of his heart.
Then, perhaps, take the family man; happy, settled, married. But he has spent all his time finding his happiness; he has given up on that spark that makes us human. That call. That dream to do something extroardinary. For he had spent his time on Earth going toward the endeavors of his heart instead of his mind.
And this disturbs me. I wish to know that both are possible yet I can't for the life of me find that it is or isn't. How can I ever choose a path of life if i know it will end in me looking back and regretting I had never had time for my dreams or love? Is there possibly enough time in alife time to find both?
That's my question.
Domesticated with gingered carrots,
On the island of green housed parrots,
PASTARASTA *U
I think you've articulated what every up-and-coming adult faces, but no one wants to admit. I love your map analogy; everyone wants to know where their path leads and how and how far it will go, but at the same time, knowing is terrifying.
What I think is even more frightening is the instability of... well, everything. The economy is on its head, most people change jobs four times in their lives, and half of all marriages end in divorce. With such dismal prospects, the pressure to forge a decent lifestyle seems to be all the higher.
I think I fit into your second category, the person who has a small idea about what she wants to do, but nothing definitive. I'm not even sure if this is better or worse than the "lost", because I have the anxiety over whether I even have the right idea, and if it's too late to change it.
Good luck in finding and pursuing your passion!
I think you sort of bring up two ideas here. To address the first, I'd like to say that I too, am one of the "lost," but I don't care. I'm going into the world open and ready to be pointed in the right direction, and I'm okay with that. I'm confident that I will be directed in the right path for me.
In response to your second idea, I think it entirely depends upon how one defines success. I'm sure the family man of which you spoke may consider himself successfull in his own right. Aside from that, I'm sure that there are conventionally successfull people who are also happy. It is all about balance and the right outlook on life.
You are definitely not the only one who is trying to figure out what it is their life's "calling" is. Everyone wants to be happy. Everyone wants to be successful. But the people who are happy and who are successful have their own definitions of happiness and successfulness. A person who has a very successful job can be happy -- but let's say an artist, who hasn't been very successful, feels that they are happy and "successful" in their own way (such as succeeding in following the person's dreams instead of what other people was trying to tell him or her). It all depends on the individual since everyone has their own ideas of what "successfulness" and what "happiness" means to them.
I consider myself someone who's in the fuzzy category, heh. Although you cast those who are "Lost" in a negative light, I feel that those are the people that have the most potential since they haven't committed to one single road or path in life -- they're opportunities are endless and eventually discover themselves along the way.
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"No matter what he does, every person on earth plays a central role in the history of the world. And normally he doesn't know it." -- The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.