Hi everyone, welcome back! A couple of weeks back, I examined relationships and what happens to two people in a relationship when we say “relationships grow apart over time”! This week, I would like to examine the belief that we should do whatever is necessary while we are still young so that we can live an amazing life in the future when we can send our kids to the most prestigious schools and retire thereafter!
Belief: We should do whatever it takes to accumulate for our kids’ college as well as for our retirements which is when we will get time to live our lives and be happy :-)!!
Wow, I really want to call us the most stupid species on this planet but for the sake of keeping it civil, let’s just call ourselves, naïve! And we are naïve because we think that we have time. We think we have time to work in that stressful job that leaves us so drained that we can’t even spend a few beautiful moments with our own family and kids; and we tell ourselves that we are working so hard to make our kids future bright. We think we have the time to forsake the relationships that we have right in front of us so that we can spend more time with our ‘online’ friends; and we tell ourselves that we are making those much needed ‘connections’ which may help us when we need them in the future. We think we have time to shop until we drop instead of spending that time having fun with our family; and we tell ourselves how much happiness we are bringing into the lives of our families by shopping with them. I think you get my point!
Folks, we have a very twisted view of life where even though we have so much of what we want from life already, however, we still keep chasing after more and more and more. And this greed for more and more doesn’t end with more. In fact, it just paves way for even more and more and more!! And this cycle of needing more continues until very late in life you realize what you have done! You realize, all these years, you had so much stuff and so many people who loved you but because you were too busy trying to chase after more, you didn’t even pay attention to what you already had! You didn’t take time to appreciate who already loved you. You didn’t pay attention to the amazing life that you already had. You didn’t pay attention to the hundreds and thousands of dollars you already had in your bank account. You didn’t pay attention to the amazing kids you already had. You didn’t pay attention to any of that!! You just kept chasing after more because the belief in your head told you that when you have more of everything it will lead to more happiness!!
I want you to understand what you are missing out on when you are focused on achieving more and more. So, let’s imagine you are a parent of a young kid and because you work in a very demanding job, you are unable to spend much time with him. Thus, this kid, although he needs you and your time and your attention; he is growing up in a one parent family because you are too busy creating a great future for him. So, down he road this kid grows up to be a teenager and now that he is a teenager, you want to influence him and his life and the decisions that he needs to make about his path forward in life. However, he refuses to listen to you let alone choose to do what you expect from him and this makes your relationship with him very turbulent. And because there is a lot of friction in your family, it creates a lot of unhappiness amongst your family members. But although your kid has nothing to do with all the unhappiness that is being created in your family, however, you blame him because you assumed that just because you are his parent, he will listen to you and do what you expect him to do. You thought it was more important to accumulate the money which he will need sometime in the future and sacrificed connecting with him in the present when he needed you. You sacrificed building your bond with him because you set a future date for your family’s happiness and you set a future date because you believed that your family including your son will be very happy if he only you could accumulate enough money to send him to that Ivy league school! Thus, you didn’t take the time to be the parent to your kid but now you want him to be the kid to his parent!
Folks, what I have come to understand in life is this amazing thing called ‘connection’! If you have a kid or any other family member, you need to connect with them and that is what makes you happy right in the moment. You need to notice and enjoy the already amazing things you have in your life which will make you happy not earning more or achieving more so that happiness can be yours in the future! I think most of us don’t really need more of anything! What we need is to be more present for what we already have enough of! And a lot of us already have a lot of what we desire. It’s just that we don’t take the time to notice and appreciate what we already have. And when we begin to do that, we will not have to wait to be happy at a future date, we will be able to find happiness right here, right now! And that is what makes any life worth living because until we do that, we are not even living, we are just chasing :-).
And as always, feel free to leave a comment if you feel like leaving one. And until next time, be more present in your already amazing life 🙂
