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Written by: Brian Bosley | Torch Consulting
When we design our lives for the benefit of other people or around the sheer attainment of other things, we are clearly missing the point. The vast majority of these people and things will be out of our lives long before their perceived benefit is ever realized.
People come in and out of our lives like waiters in a restaurant, and the things we “can’t live without” eventually prove themselves unworthy of the title.
We strive so hard to please our employers, to be looked upon in favor by our wealthier neighbors, to be admired by fans, or to be lusted after by the masses. However when we truly follow the course of such ambitions, we find dead-ends down nearly every pathway. Bosses move on, neighbors move away, fans soon forget, and the masses don’t give a shit to begin with.
The only people that really matter are you and your immediate loved ones. The only things that matter are your values and your dreams.
Most people and every thing in our lives are like fingernail, toenails and hair. We worry about them, we groom them, we spend time and money on them. In the final analysis, we must cut and clip them.
Our immediate loved ones, our values, and our dreams are akin to our heart, brain, and internal organs. Without these, we no longer exist. We don’t outgrow them and we can never cut or clip them. They linger. They stalk.
They are eternal.
But not unlike the population who spends a their time grooming and coloring the temporary and a scarce amount on the permanent, we too spend more time on the pleasure of others and the capture of stuff than we do on living our values and chasing our dreams.
Don’t believe me? How much time did you spend today working on your appearance or working extra just to buy more stuff? Compare that with the time you spent with your children?
Chasing a dream?
Reflecting on your childhood?
Helping another?
That’s what I thought.
Emile Henry Gauvreau said it best, “ I was part of that strange race of people aptly described as spending their lives doing things they detest to make money they don’t want to buy things they don’t need to impress people they don’t like.”
It’s time to reengineer the very structure of our lives, to remove our heads from our proverbial asses, to question everything about who we are and what we stand for.
Otherwise go ahead, enjoy those new shoes while they last. Feign self-importance in front of those “cool” neighbors.
For now, I have to go. There’s a dream to catch, and my son wants to play catch.