As we grow up, we often try to figure out the best path for our lives. We look at the lives of others and those who came before us and then make an attempt to orchestrate our success by basing our focus and future goals on what we see as that which is "worthy" of attaining. We desire to impress our family, friends, and co-workers by doing those things which society has deemed as respectable of the average citizen, i.e. getting married, having kids, going to college, without truly thinking if this is what we truly desire for our lives. Most don't stop to think why they have adopted these goals. Some say that these are the rules of life and we have to adhere to them without truly considering if this, in fact, is the case. Most never think about the fact that every "rule" that we have today was created by someone before us who decided this was the best path for our lives. There is no mandate for anyone to adopt it and if you take a minute to access what this means, this can be truly liberating.
Many people decide to go to college, get a job, get married, buy a house, have kids, blah, blah, blah, without ever considering if this is truly what they desire. As children this has been so ingrained in us that few people ever stop to think WHY they desire to do these things. What occurs as the end result is that many actually achieve what they set out to do and then realize one day that they are not truly happy. They wake up one day when they are 40 and look at their lives and feel that they have let so much time go by without truly experiencing the things in life that now their heart is telling them they should have. I hypothesize that this is caused by an adaptation of the White Picket Fence syndrome (WPF). The White Picket Fence syndrome is known as a condition in which someone holds onto a notion of perfection in their lives and family when that is simply just not the case. My adaptation of this is the White Picket Life (WPL) syndrome.
The White Picket Life syndrome is a disorder is one in which an individual bases many of his/her goals in life and milestones of achievement on what he/she deems is acceptable by society as opposed to true desires and individual characteristics. As teenagers, we begin to rebel somewhat against this but many are bought back to "reality" when we get to college and get back on the WPL path. It is only when many are older and truly have had enough life experiences to actually reflect on their lives that many wake up one day and realize they have suffered from this disorder their entire life and then begin to try to make up for the lost time of their youth by "re-engineering" their lives. However, this epiphany often only leads to another psychological disorder we often refer to as a Mid-Life Crisis.
So how can you prevent this from happening in your life? It is very simple: THINK. It is something that most people feel that they are doing on a day to day basis, and they are to some extent. The problem, however, is that many are simply running on autopilot thinking for many of their life decisions and not realizing it. This is similar to when you drive to work without actually "thinking" about the turning and braking of the car. You have done it so many times that you don't truly think at all because it is conditioned in your brain. This is how many have "thought" about their lives by simply adopting the conditioned thoughts that have been taught for so many years by so many outside influences of what is and isn't acceptable.
A simple exercise that should help you realize if you suffer from this or not is to write down the top 10 goals for your life: personal and professional. For each of those goals, ask yourself two questions. 1.Who says that this HAS to be a goal for my life? 2.What would I do if this WASN'T a goal in my life? For some, this exercise will be a confidence booster of their ability to orchestrate their lives based on their true individual desires up to this point. While for others, this could be the beginning of a true wake-up call to reassess your life's direction and make the necessary changes to make sure that you are living a life that you will truly be happy with. As the saying goes, "Life isn't a dress rehearsal." You have to make this ONE count.
Ken Middleton is an Account Executive at TEKsystems that specializes in IT staffing and sales. He is a graduate of UNC-Pembroke and current MBA student at Scheller College of Business at Georgia Tech.
You can follow his daily quotes of inspiration and motivation on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIN
No comments:
Post a Comment