Security and safety is an illusion. An illusion exists only in the absence of reality. You can be fired, let go, your company can go under, there can be budget cuts, and there goes your secure job. Take a look at the state of teaching jobs in New York State. Hundreds have lost their jobs and many cannot find jobs. So much for that secure teaching job everyone told you about. Yeah, summers off, holidays off, vacation time, retirement/pension, security, union, and yeah now guess what. The job opportunities are few and far between and you may just get cut. Even worse, lets say you put in ten years and then you get let go, then what do you do? We have no idea if there will be any social security for those in the work field now. I reiterate security is an illusion.
Lets hope you make it to this next step if you haven't it is never too late. Most of us feel if we trust our gut and choose the path we know will bring us happiness that we have to succeed or we will be a failure. Or worse our loved ones will think of us as failures and they will rub it in and say "I told you so."
Subconsciously, we are scared of who we'll become. We want to maintain homeostasis. We want to remain the same. This is the path of least resistance. This is the easiest path but not necessarily the best. A great quote that has stuck with me through the years by Robert Frost is "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference."
That road less traveled by is our life's work. The work we are made for. The work we were born to do.
Most of the world gets stuck in this rat race of becoming something that we think we are supposed to be. Media of all sorts and the powers that be force this upon us daily and its EVERYWHERE. Local news, television, reality shows, Hollywood movies, magazines, billboards, music, social media, and the list goes on. It is very easy to get sucked into the trends. They want us to believe their marketing. They want us to be consumers.
They tell you if you look like this, if you drive this, if you wear this, if you listen to this, if you surround yourself with these types of people you will be happy. Ever wonder why you get that new thing, you are happy for about 3 hours and once it wears off you go back to your normal (possibly miserable) self. Back to homeostasis. That is because what you acquired is just a thing. It is MEANINGLESS. No psychical or psychological change has occurred.
Another great quote that has changed the shape of my thoughts is from Fight Club: "We work jobs we hate, to buy shit we don't need, to impress people we don't like."
Be wary of marketing. Be wary of consumerism. Be wary of a lifestyle obsession. Be wary of those who tell you to choose that safer path.
Take advice only from those who have taken that harder path. When you embark on your journey toward your life's work your family may look at you differently, you will lose friends, you will end up on an unknown ship in the middle of the sea. This is a scary route but you will not be alone. You will find meaning in places you never thought to look. You will make new friends. Better friends. Truer friends and we are better and truer to them.
If you are still hung up on which road to choose ask yourself this. Are you choosing a route that millions of other people have already been down? Is there much meaning in doing something that anyone else can do and anyone else has already done?
Trust your gut. Go down that road less traveled. Seek meaning in your life and you will not regret your decision. You will go to the grave with a smile on your face thinking that was one hell of a ride. You will have completed your life's work.
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