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Originally Posted by skysooner
What I mean by this is that we all make choices in life. You can choose to follow the mainstream or you can choose to be a rebel. There is nothing wrong with either choice. What is important is to give your life meaning. Whether this is through finding the right person to get married to, having kids, continually going to school to learn more, excelling in your job, hobbies, is up to you. I don't place too much importance anymore on achieving big-time professional success (i.e. rising to upper management) as I am very well-respected in my industry and am just starting to get some international exposure in my field. I achieve happiness with my wife. I achieve satisfaction with my kids (kids are difficult but it is fun to see them develop). I have also chosen to be a life-long learner by going to school (I finish my MBA tonight actually). I'm also a leader in my church (but I don't want to delve too much into the study of religion). I just try to do what makes me happy. Having a nice home and taking nice vacations makes me happy, so I work to support that habit. I know how you feel. I felt the same way when I was in my mid 20s, but I have finally figured out what I want out of life and work to achieve that.
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I completely disagree with everything in this post. Life is not full of choices where you sit down and rationally plan things out for most people. You wind up in a certain place before you can turn around and even begin to make decisions, and even then, it's not up to you. This is a prime example of completely buying into the package, not thinking, never trying to change anything and "everybody winds up where they deserve to be" bullshit you can expect of somebody who classifies an MBA as lifelong learning. (30 pieces of silver, anybody?) I'm not even going to directly address the mentality where one's wife and kids are checkboxes on the road to happiness.
Now, does that mean this poster accepts that? No, but the fact that he chose to represent it to the general public is indicative of his desire to fit in, which aligns neatly with the rest of his life. So here's your answer to your question, you can either buy into the whole system, or change your lifestyle accordingly in order to find what makes you happy. Because as vitriolic as my criticism of his lifestyle may be, if he's truly happy then nothing else matters, including my criticism. And that is something worth envying, if for all the wrong reasons.