We are all constantly being bombarded with ideas and advice on how to achieve success, but rarely are we guided on how to realise happiness. Most people believe that if and when we becomes successful we will be happy, but this is not the case.
Older folks always tend to ask youngsters, and children, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Many youngsters will answer that, they want to be this or that profession.
It is shocking, how few of them show any enthusiasm at all for doing, experiencing etc. in a sense to live full wholesome meaningful lives.
Modern schooling is seriously flawed. We have been teaching and grooming the young to pursue a career or learn a profession only to earn a living. To make as much money as we can and to acquire as much as is possible. It does not matter what we direct them to acquire, wealth, assets, power, influence, fame, etc. just keep on acquiring more and more.
It is only natural that in a materialistic world, we think of our journey in life merely as a goal. Not surprisingly we remain dissatisfied even when we attain our life goals. Why?
Success and failure only effected my ego. However constantly learning and experiencing both in width and depth and after much reflection has expanded my mental and emotional horizons. More impactful has been the enriching of my spiritual being.
That is why I believe that we have to ask ourselves a fundamental question, ‘Do we live to work or do we work to live?’
We have been grooming the young to only acquire wealth and power instead of developing the mind, the character and the spirit. Should it not be, that one works, so as to live a meaningful and joyful life? To evolve continuously learning and practising the new thus realising greater human potential each new day.
Every human being is born as a potential. Potential not to become something but to unendingly experience, learn and evolve.
To become something, is often considered a success, it is necessarily not so.
If we know what we want to be, and genuinely pursue it, then, we inevitably become it. If we never know what we want to be then we can be anything. Therefore what we become, that is not our reward but our punishment.
Yes, we need a vocation, a profession to earn a living, and yes we need to form relationships within families and society. But these alone cannot be our life,
We are not mere things, writer, engineer, florist, actor, etc.
This is probably why people feel trapped in their lives, because they see themselves as things and not as beings doing things.
Each one of us, is a being in action. I am writing, engineering, consulting, teaching or gardening, I never know what I am going to do next.
Truly successful people, are not necessarily jumping from one vocation or one activity to another. They are people who are continuously evolving.
The day we become something, our evolution stops and our human journey ends, because, we become a thing.
The question ‘Who am I ?’ can only follow ‘What am I?’
What are you and what are you teaching your children?
#children #happiness #success #lives #schooling #flawed #materialistic #mind #character #spirit #potential #success #parenting #evolve
This is so wonderfully written!
It is a million dollar question – where are we leading our kids? To the same rat race the world is in today?
Or beyond that – where they should ideally be!