I have been thinking a little today about my life. Spurred by a Lenten challenge from friends in our church community, I have been thinking about how upside down my life really is.
For instance, my values tend to be: Family, Friends, Helping Others, Spiritual Seeking (not in any order).
Yet my time allotment tends to be: Job, Personal Interests, Family. These days I have little time for friends, helping others, and spiritual seeking, and even Family is subordinated to my Job and my personal interests.
The vicious cycle seems to be something like this: I work a demanding job in order to pay for things that really don't directly address my values (my values are actually pretty cheap to engage when I really think about it), the resulting emptiness of not living a life I "value," drives me to personal interests to try and maintain my sanity, many of these hobbies cost money, which feeds back into the perceived necessity of a high paying, full-time job in order to maintain happiness.
I know people whose values and time commitment are better aligned than mine (at least I suspect so), yet I struggle to see a good way forward to get out of this damn cycle. I never wanted to be the busy suburban Dad with a boring but well paying job and a neatly groomed lawn, but it seems that before I turned around I have ended up there (well, except for the lawn, it is in terrible shape!). So what the hell happened?
2 comments:
boy do I hear you. I expected to have alot more things figured out than I do at this point in life. Sigh. Guess we have to keep finding value in the process? I don't have any great words of wisdom, but a book suggestion (if you haven't read it already): The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle. Good stuff. Helps you appreciate the moment you're in, even if it's not the one you wanted to be in.
Ken, Melissa is right about Tolle... oh, wait it was *you* who recommended Tolle. Wow... what a fantastic book. It really has been helping. No wonder you call him a spiritual progressive.
And re: your post. As a single guy I can really just walk away from all of it at any time (and I did 2 times in my 20s) but I found that I couldn't sit still; couldn't relax. I, like you, have some kind of inner angst to *acquire* and I wasn't satisfied just being still. Nothing satisfied unless I was making my mark somewhere... and in a way, I think I'm getting my identity by being "needed" in the world of work.
Yet, I'm not really needed.
Post a Comment