Living the life of your dreams
It occurred to me, that I didn't really have a 'perfect' vision of the life of my dreams. Instead, I'm constantly taking on board other people's dreams, and allowing them to sidetrack me from what I want to do.
It got me thinking about asian culture in general... Since we have such a strong culture of respect for our elders, we often get forced into being pigeonholed into a particular job, or role, or profession, based on what our parents think is best for us. What if we don't want to? Well often, the case in the past has been that our parents have always been considered to be "looking out for our best interests", knowing better than we do, about what is to come in life.
That has always rubbed me up the wrong way, and at times I've wondered, how exactly can my parents know better than me? It's not as if they're living my life? Well, it's times like these, that I've had to remind myself, that what I want out of life, and what my parents want out of life are two different things, which paradoxically are the same. They want the best for us, and we want the best for us. But if what we imagine is the best for us, is different to what they imagine is the best for us - then we can start to engage with some real conflict. It can even be a real challenge for us, who wanting to appease our parents may engage with something which is clearly not the best thing for us, but will definitely make our lives easier, in our relationship with our parents.
The downside to this, is that we start to live out another's life, and lose all passion for what really drives us, and motivates us... Unless that happens to be keeping the parents happy - though usually, it's a consequnce of us looking for that approval, that we get when we do something that makes them think they're happy.
The sad part, is that this happiness is only ever imaginary, and never really real. Whenever we relate our happiness to something external to ourselves, we lose control of that happiness, and consquently, we can never choose if we want to be happy or not. Ironically, whilst we might appear to be reliant on anothers happiness, it is really when we choose to be happy, that we allow ourselves to see our experiences in life as taking us towards or further away from our happiness and joy. A child exploring their world can make us happy, for the child, or we can be unhappy, because the child isn't doing what we tell it to do. That conditional happiness will never really last - and to be able to be happy, requires the ability to find the joy, regardless of the external environment. It just depends on what you're looking at, what you're putting your attention to. They say that one man's joy is another man's sorrow - does that mean that for everyone that's happy we have to have people who are sad? I'm pretty sure that isn't the point - but rather that each person has their own special understanding of happiness, and discovering that key helps unlock each individuals secrets to happiness.
It got me thinking about asian culture in general... Since we have such a strong culture of respect for our elders, we often get forced into being pigeonholed into a particular job, or role, or profession, based on what our parents think is best for us. What if we don't want to? Well often, the case in the past has been that our parents have always been considered to be "looking out for our best interests", knowing better than we do, about what is to come in life.
That has always rubbed me up the wrong way, and at times I've wondered, how exactly can my parents know better than me? It's not as if they're living my life? Well, it's times like these, that I've had to remind myself, that what I want out of life, and what my parents want out of life are two different things, which paradoxically are the same. They want the best for us, and we want the best for us. But if what we imagine is the best for us, is different to what they imagine is the best for us - then we can start to engage with some real conflict. It can even be a real challenge for us, who wanting to appease our parents may engage with something which is clearly not the best thing for us, but will definitely make our lives easier, in our relationship with our parents.
The downside to this, is that we start to live out another's life, and lose all passion for what really drives us, and motivates us... Unless that happens to be keeping the parents happy - though usually, it's a consequnce of us looking for that approval, that we get when we do something that makes them think they're happy.
The sad part, is that this happiness is only ever imaginary, and never really real. Whenever we relate our happiness to something external to ourselves, we lose control of that happiness, and consquently, we can never choose if we want to be happy or not. Ironically, whilst we might appear to be reliant on anothers happiness, it is really when we choose to be happy, that we allow ourselves to see our experiences in life as taking us towards or further away from our happiness and joy. A child exploring their world can make us happy, for the child, or we can be unhappy, because the child isn't doing what we tell it to do. That conditional happiness will never really last - and to be able to be happy, requires the ability to find the joy, regardless of the external environment. It just depends on what you're looking at, what you're putting your attention to. They say that one man's joy is another man's sorrow - does that mean that for everyone that's happy we have to have people who are sad? I'm pretty sure that isn't the point - but rather that each person has their own special understanding of happiness, and discovering that key helps unlock each individuals secrets to happiness.
posted by magitam at 3:08 pm
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