Ever since the Switchfoot gig, I have had the refrain “this is your life/are you who you want to be?” running through my head.
Last week we celebrated Jewish New Year with some friends and they explained that for the following 10 days people make things right with others, study the Torah and lay down what they are doing as they prepare for Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) which is this Saturday.
It was (and is) a good time of reflecting.
Today I came across across this quote:
Even if we paid off all of our debt more rapidly than we could possibly imagine, we wouldn’t be satisfied. We would be more secure, but not happy.
From Wise Bread
So the question is: if you were getting an additional $10,000 in you job, would you be happy? would you be who you want to be?
maybe it is time to look at that dream…
happy-ness
Joy v Happiness – it’s a really interesting difference I think.
Looking at the lyrics in the song – it seems to me he’s saying “so, you dreamed something, but open your eyes: this is what you’ve got, and THIS is life”:
Switchfoot are primarily a band talking to the kids, with bleed into people in their early 30s like us: so how is it that teens/Gen Y are ALREADY dealing with broken dreams about their life?
I think what he’s saying is not “don’t dream”, nor “broken dream = life over” but instead something like “wake up, and deal”.
I think your quote runs interference by introducing the multiheaded monster of money; the prep for Yom Kippur is spot on: what’s the status of your life right now? What needs to happen to make things right?
Happiness relates to satisfaction, which demands a little reality check to be realistic: so without taking stock, you can’t be happy.
Joy is a whole different kettle of fish…
For me – I’m blessed in a number of areas. I have dreams in other areas, but their success or failure won’t be central to my enjoyment of life: I hope I’ll always be able to find something to take pleasure from – I doubt that will always be the same thing, nor do I think it will always be the same number of things (eg if Richmond eventually win a premiership in my lifetime, I’ll be additionally happy, not singularly happy because of that for those couple of days).
I think the attitude of surveying what you HAVE and being thankful for that is crucial.
Yes. Assessing where you
Yes. Assessing where you are at is crucial to this reflection process.
The point of quoting Wise Bread was that the quote comes in the context of saying – most people tend to think that they need more money before they will pursue their dreams.
Their response is that actually the counter-intuitive is true – pursuing your dream may appear to be a sacrifice on the money front, but it actually is not over the longer term.
I think this ties in to the “strengths finder” notion – you will be more successful, in all dimensions of the word, by pursuing the riskier dream.
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