Empty Nest Series — 14 — Having Everything
you can have everything in life, but not all at the same time.
Someone wise reiterated the truth of life.
I can tell you my example, till in my 20s there wasn't much of competition or comparison as such happening in life, maybe the virtue of being in a small town and the protected environment of an ashram college helped. Never was a point till then when I thought I needed to usurp anyone, as some celebrities say with oodles of cliches “ I am my own competition”. It was true, never was a moment when there was an instance till then when I didn't know what to do and no act was done with others in perspective.
Cut to living in metros and starting a career, things started getting slowly competitive. You would like to dress like another, you want to work on a project that is like someone else is doing, and you would toil a bit extra without knowing what is the end game. As they say, every quality is there in us and we just need a jolt to bring it out. So what came out was the competitiveness. More things were done to please others. Officially in the rat race and zooming away. I was one reckless rat running balancing act of a lot of stuff, learning firmware to software to protocol stacks… yes all these are tech blah blah… with management skills I thought it was all needed to further myself. Concentration wasn't on one, but many things to be conquered. It just got very hectic and growth was stunted. Nothing was done to better the human and all the softer skills and hobbies were ignored. Wasnt a great move would say. The thought was I needed to have everything and the definition of this “everything” was very skewed.
Later realised that I could have everything but not at the same time. Greed for life I would say, is consuming and disappointing too. So many moments were spent with dissatisfaction thinking “What if I had that … “ and “Why is that not mine…”. Not worth it in retrospect.
Hope you find your everything for the moment and be a zen rat… as the race is on already!
The mole/rat in here is very wise, and so are others in this boy’s company.
https://www.instagram.com/charliemackesy/ Of the best book ever — https://www.amazon.com/Boy-Mole-Fox-Horse/dp/0062976583
