I would like to share my thoughts with you on the obsession about self fulfilment. Living your dream is top priority. Self-fulfilment is everything. Isn’t it? Who do you think is the happiest: People who achieve their dreams, people who don’t have a dream or people who have a dream and don’t achieve it? The achievers? Well, it’s amazing how many people will not be satisfied. What about the professor, who worked 15 years only to get the position of a professor’s chair who falls into a deep depression upon achievement, his marriage breaks, he is deeply unhappy. He had nothing planned for afterwards and as he had climbed up the tower standing on the top, he felt the nothingness surrounding him and his world tumbled like the houses we build from playing cards.
What about the business whiz who starting his company at 19 finds himself lost and without direction, having done so well from the start, now 24 and restless? Wanting and getting is not the key to being fulfilled. What about not wanting and getting it? We often appreciate most what we worked hard for, yet we can also appreciate what comes naturally. At the end of the day, and even in the beginning, appreciation is about being happy about what you have regardless of the way you got it. When I ask people what they are most proud about in their life, I often hear, i.e. the birth of their child (Men and women alike). Very few say the best thing ever was the pay raise or the job they wanted. What did they work harder for?
I find it fascinating how-when it comes down to it, most humans put more meaning into emotional basic events than mental creations (dreams, goals, plans etc). Being happy has nothing to do with achieving your dreams. Happiness is not something outside yourself. You do not need to spend big money on getting it though it seems that many people bottle and sell it (and why wouldn’t they..). Some things will bring you pleasure and that can trigger happiness but the decision weather you will let yourself be happy or not is always with you. You will find that what may cause you to be happy today might not have the same effect tomorrow.
Now this may sound as if you just needed to say: I want to be happy and you are happy. But who is “I”? We all have many different parts that make up our personality and character, all that we call “me”. Our conscious mind, our unconscious, our past, our present, our ideas, education etc. affect us in the way we think, feel and perceive ourselves.
I find that knowing yourself and your changeable nature is very valuable. We all change and this is what life is about. Change is the only constant in life. What I like today, I may get bored of tomorrow, what I want tomorrow, may be meaningless today. What this shows us is simply where we are. Our “liking”, “wanting”, “needing”allow us to experience ourselves in relation to the world. What does this mean in relation to living our dream? Going for our full potential? If what we dream and want is of a changing nature, hanging on to it too much can’t be too healthy. Some people make it more important than themselves and as fascinating as it may be that they do so, it makes no sense to me at all. How can something you want to do, be, have, be bigger than you?
For me, my life is about me. I don’t mean this exclusively egoistically. But I will include it. To live my potential, all I really need to do is to feel myself and desires will come that inspire me to take action (or not). I have a choice of listening to this and follow. There is nobody judging you on this. It’s totally between you and you.
Sometimes I wonder about the term self “fulfilment” itself: Is there a hole inside of us we need to fill? I know it feels like it sometimes. And I know that from that hole, that feeling of nothingness comes inspiration, ideas, creation, moving forward. The hole is also space; breeding ground… The emptiness has the greatest potential for everything. To feel myself fully to me is self-fulfilment.
So why get obsessed about realizing one idea? Why beat yourself up if you can’t seem to get what you wanted or may I say…thought you wanted. How about looking at it from a perspective of feeling yourself and your ideas, your life. Detach. Relax. Chances are you get it when you don’t chase it too much. (I don’t really know yet if it means you will actually get it, but I’ll tell you when I do.) Our dreams and goals are not dogmas we have to follow. They are motivating guidelines that give us direction and a promising view of the future. This in return helps us create more pleasure and energy for others and ourselves. If a goal doesn’t inspire you, it has lost its purpose. So what inspires you today? What is your goal, your dream? I like to think about having achieved all the musical and artistic success I dream about: the concerts, the book signings, those happy faces I get to look at whose lives have changed for the better, the songs in the charts, the fancy dresses, the wonderful people around me….and look back on my life. I think: I loved it all turned out so well, there was no way to see why it suddenly worked, but it did.
The only thing I wish I had done is spending more time growing friendships and nourishing my family. That always gave me pleasure. I wish I had had more time for the little things in life.
I’m only 1.55m (5’2 or so) after all.
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