Monday, July 20, 2009

Appraisal

What gives meaning to my life?



What fuels my actual being?



What makes me happy and feel radiant?



What makes my life all THE MORE worth living?

_____________

How often do you actually stop throughout your day or week or month or even a year to identify and meditate upon the factors that add worth to to your life? I would like to think that we do this often. That we all think about what makes our life truly worth living. And that we constantly question our well being. BUT unfortunately...I don't think it happens as often as it should. I actually think that the daily grind has beaten us into conformity and that we seldom ever stop to assess our happiness.

I am one such example. I was relaxing and reading a book and these questions popped into my head. **POP** What gives meaning to my life? **POP** What and who makes me truly happy? **POP** (It was just like a cartoon when the dialogue bubble bursts onto the screen)

So I began to address these questions and you know what? ….I ACTUALLY had to stop and think more!!! I had to pause and ponder and put additional thought into these questions, BECAUSE I had not properly acknowledged these essential questions before in my own mind.
I would have hoped that the substance of value, meaning, and definition of my own life would be readily available upon my own tongue. Sadly, it was not.

So I put a halt to my reading and began to reflect… But I could not get past the initial road block. WHY did I even have to give a second glance to these questions? I thought I was “in-tune” with myself. Then it came to me…

From time to time our day-to-day life rubs directly against those key facets in our lives that actually provide us with meaning (with the ability to hone in on our happiness). There are so many competing factors in our daily lives (work, obligations, mortgage, appointments, etc) that we eventually allow them to blur our ability to recognize the beauty and vitality that is woven into EVERY SINGLE FIBER of our existence.

One example…The climb up the professional ladder. The desire to slave away at work for years upon years to hopefully one day MAKE IT TO THE TOP. This is engrained into our being from a tender age. Now I know one is expected to pursue their dreams (this is a positive characteristic) BUT IT CAN directly shade the light of the real meaning of life. It can take the focus off of the things that actually add happiness to our lives. And so building meaningful relationships, sharing hearts, and seeking a comfortable identity often takes back seat to years of schooling, preparations, meetings, money, late lonely nights, overtime, classes, briefcases, suits, and salary. How is it that we allow ourselves to neglect the radiance of TRUE grandeur of our life for the quest of a 401k and better stock options? As a child we could clearly see what made us really happy and we held tight to those treasures. So at what point in our life do we shift our attention from beauty to business?

Perhaps this is just the fate of a capitalistic society. Just a simple result of the world we live in. HOWEVER, this diversion of our attention is the VERY root of our problems and cannot be lightly shrugged away as just societal conditions. There are millions of people all around us that are unhappy and unsatisfied with their life…because somewhere along the way they have lost sight of their significance. Through the pursuit of power they neglected their own pursuit of happiness.

1 comment:

  1. not sure, but...is the book planting something in ur mind? ;P mmmmmmmuuuuuuuuuuuaks!

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