Thought for the day

by John Doe 58 Replies latest jw friends

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  John Doe

  I've been questioning my course in life the last few weeks. Am I building the right life? Would I be more useful in something else? I don't know. I feel as clueless now as I did 10 years ago. Such is life.

  Surely in every life there is a defining moment--a moment when one can look back and see everything leading up to one crowning acheivement. Then, one can look forward and see clearly the direction to take. At least, I hope this is the case. Then again, I don't know if others even consider such thoughts in any detail or with any regularity. What I do know is that, looking back, I see no such moment in my own life. Perhaps I'm looking for something that is not there, or, more alarming, perhaps I've missed the defining moment of my life.

  When I'm an old man, if I live that long, I'd like to be able to look back with fondness and rememberance and tell people about how I built my world. And yet, if I am to do this, I'd wager it will be based upon a faulty memory.
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  BurnTheShips

  Wow dude. I had decided not to kill myself tonight.
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  John Doe

  Wow dude. I had decided not to kill myself tonight.

  Why?
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  watson

  JD, obviously your work is not done here.
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  parakeet

  JD: "Surely in every life there is a defining moment--a moment when one can look back and see everything leading up to one crowning acheivement."

  Thoreau wrote that most people live lives of "quiet desperation." If you think that life ought to be the way you want it to be, you're still thinking like a dub. I'm not trying to make you feel worse. But you have to see the world as it really is before you can make substantive changes in your life. Good luck.
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  zagor

  Funny you should ask that question. Lately I've been going through the same thing myself. Sometimes we go through motions of life without posing for a moment to really ponder why we do what we do? What it is we are living for? and most importantly is what we say we are living for and what we actually spend time on in sync??

  Lately I've realized just how much I was scattering my energies and chasing after wrong things and people and just how much that affected me. So I'm taking a long break, I'm off, going on a long holiday to see my parents while they are still alive and to spend time doing things I once loved, hiking, fishing, sailing, horse riding etc and basically reconnecting with my inner self if you wanna put it that way. Taking along my little one too so she can see where her daddy grew up. She is with me there for a month before her mom arrives to take her to see the other side of the family, but I think I'll stick around for a wee bit longer there and just take it easy for a change. Ever since my marriage exploded I've been on a roller coaster ride never realizing I was basically destroying myself in the process.

  But now I know what I'm supposed to do, I love creating things, these are the moments of profound insight that make life worth living, for me at least. But before I immerse myself into it I'm on my way home to reconnect, recalibrate, and release real zagor out. Life is too short for anything less, and anything less is betrayal of once life and what it stands for.

  Mind you it is all good we are asking these questions still relatively young, some people only start wandering on their deathbed what their life stood for lol. It is very well reflected in the words of Marcus Aurelius from the movie Gladiator

  "I am dying, Maximus. When a man sees his end he wants to know there was some purpose to his life. How will the world speak my name in years to come? Will I be known as the philosopher? The warrior? The tyrant...? Or will I be the emperor who gave Rome back her true self?"

  Quite striking isn't it?
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  quietlyleaving

  what I've found useful is break down my defining moments into moments that can happen at any time without a goal or acheivement attached to them. But acheivements do mean a lot when they do happen I guess but they tend to be very small compared to my former goal of everlasting life in a paradise earth or of my teenage goal of becoming an archaeolgoist or an anthropologist or even my childhood goal of becoming an artist.

  I have lots of defining moments from reading your posts
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  LouBelle

  My thought for the day: To slience the ego takes great courage and discipline.
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  quietlyleaving

  My thought for the day: To slience the ego takes great courage and discipline.

  and it takes as much not to
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  John Doe

  As time progresses, I become more and more of a procrastinator. Ah, procrastinator--thank the man who invented that word. With this word, we have a nice euphemism to prevent us motivationally challenged people from being lazy assholes.

  Procrastination is really an interesting thing. I have assignments and deadlines. In my mind, I am going to do them all with plenty of time for reworks, drafts, and edits. Yup, I'm going to start right now, no more missing deadlines and taking penalties. That's right, tonight I will have a headway and will be industrious and motivated. Right after I take a nap. Aw heck, I'll get started in the morning.