It’s difficult to comprehend most things in life, especially the big things. Things like God, the Holocaust, and aerosol cheese (okay, aerosol cheese isn't big, but it's difficult to understand). It’s difficult, because most of us never give enough thought to anything to even start to understand it, let alone make any effort to research it or read other’s thoughts on it. We seem apathetic and lazy. We, mostly Americans, seem obsessed with the superficial and the innocuous, things that won’t mean anything in six months, or a year from now. I don’t believe that we don’t care or that we’re lazy, I think it’s because we’re afraid. We’re scared. We’re afraid to know. We’re afraid of getting old. We’re afraid of getting fat. We’re afraid of going grey. We’re afraid that we’re not smart enough, good looking enough, thin enough, rich enough, strong enough, desirable enough, healthy enough, funny enough, never enough, enough, etc. etc. We’re afraid. And we do crazy things to hide and disguise that fear so we never have to face it.
Think about the pressure we feel to live up to other people’s expectations. Like the pressure to buy a big, beautiful house that we can’t afford or a nice, new car that we don’t really need. Things that we put a lot of “ourselves” into, at the very least, things that we anchor some portion of identity to. Think about what that means – saying that a big house or a new car is “me”, or that they represent “me”, is repulsive when you think about it. However, the need to say, “Look, I’m good enough, see!” is overwhelming and powerful.
How about the power of having money, that’s a big one. It’s sad, you could say you scrubbed toilets for a living but got paid $250,000 a year for it and people would be asking, “How do you qualify for that kind of job?” and, “Where can I apply?”.
We seem overly eager and very willing to sell out and prostitute ourselves for money. We’ll work at a job we hate for 20 or 30 years and be miserable every day, but we never really give our passions or our dreams a chance. Why is that? Do we still believe what our parents told us growing up? “You should be a doctor or lawyer; those professions earn a lot of money!” They said that because they were close enough to the “Great Depression” that they still carry all of that angst and anxiety and aren’t afraid to share it with us. Just because they never followed their dreams, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t follow ours.
I’m tired of being afraid. It’s back in the air now, credit crisis, bad economy, etc. We moved from the fear of terrorists to the fear of having no job. I’m tired of it. I want peace and joy back into my life and I want to follow my passions and dreams.
Pursue your passion, not your pension!