While driving in the country, a phrase on the car radio popped out at me, “What kind of person do you want to become?” For fun, I tried to imagine my perfect future. I tried to imagine the kind of person I want to become in ten or fifteen years.
I really couldn’t imagine my one perfect future. I could see a million mes, a million futures. How do you know which path is right for you? How can we choose?
I am very goal oriented, and I live with someone who is always dreaming. Always looking forward. Always thinking about what’s around the next bend.
It’s good to dream. It’s good to plan. It’s good to be moving toward a goal. But I am starting to question the validity of setting another goal.
I’d always imagined that once we moved here everything would be settled. That would be it. The goal would be achieved.
But Cameron’s always thinking. Always dreaming. Always looking around the next bend. He’s wise, and he’s got our best interests at heart. I mean, let’s be practical here. We’re financially stable, but what if we had children? And what about retirement? Shouldn’t we always be moving forward, saving more, doing more, learning more, earning more, experiencing more?
But sometimes I wonder when we will be able to just relax, just be in the moment. What happens when you achieve a goal. Do you just plateau? Rest on your laurels?
I guess I thought that once we arrived here it would be good enough. Especially since I’ve always rolled my eyes at those who are never satisfied: Millionaires who want bigger houses and then even bigger houses after that. Olympians who aren’t satisfied with Silver. Gold medalists who aren’t satisfied with Gold and want to win Gold two years in a row. Bigger, better, wider, faster, newer, more, more, more.
Is this what life is meant to be? Always looking around the bend? I am starting to question the purpose of life now. I mean, what is an ideal life? Seriously, in eutopia, in a perfect world, what would life be like?
I don’t think eutopia would be filled with people busily trying to look around the next bend. Eutopia would be living in the moment.
I don’t want to look around the bend. In fact, sometimes I just want to look down at my feet and stay here awhile. But Cameron might tell me to be practical. And maybe he’s right.
But a household with two practical thinkers is just no fun. Maybe that’s why we work together so well; I have the pipe dreams and he brings us back to reality. He transforms my dreams into bite-sized, achievable portions that actually happen. I shout some lofty ideas and he charts maps and figures out how we’re going to get there.
So no, I still haven’t figured out the meaning of life. However, I have figured out that every goal achieved has an endearing sweetness about it. Because soon enough that goal will be left behind, and new goals will rise on the horizon. So I hereby solemnly swear to savour the sweetness and live in the moment while I can. To ride the thrill and exhiliration of dreams and goals, both new and old.
PS: But I guess eutopia would be very boring and unsatisfying if people just walked around eating grapes and playing harps. See? This is why I am confused!
I have been thinking a lot about things like this lately. A good friend is going to UPEI and really wants to major in Philosophy. It’s not a high demand career path, but it’s his passion.
Part of what he is studying at the moment is the question of religion/souls/etc… Do we have a mind (soul) and a brain (biological computer) and are they separate? Is their a intangible part of our being that is separate from the biological wiring of our brains? And if so do we go somewhere paradisaical when we die?
Laine and I were discussing this last night and we came to the same thought that having a reward or promised land in the back of our minds makes us tend to not treat our current world all that great. We also concluded that this premise holds true on a smaller scale. Eg “It’ll be so great when i get that new job! I’ll not waste any effort making this job any better…” or “When we move to out new house it’ll be so great, I don’t have to put any effort into this one” and so on.
Not all people do this, or at least not all to the same extent, but I think human nature makes us all do it a little. Part of what really fascinated me was the concept of secular humanism that states that all we need is to believe in ourselves and our fellow humans to be good and make the world we live in to be the paradise religion promises.
Not every one can make that leap from faith in a amorphous god being to faith in each other but I think it would make a huge difference in the world!
If we take that concept down to a personal level and have faith in ourselves, and also in our present day situation as being pretty damn miraculous we’d all be pretty fulfilled. Setting goals is good though or we’d all become quite stagnate, but our goals shouldn’t be based on achieving a perfect life, just continuing the perfect lives we already have.
I don’t know that I have answered the question you intended, but your post is timely with what I have been questioning about life and existence.
Thanks for the thought provoking post!
Laura-Jane,
I think you’ll know when you’ve reached that last bend. Perhaps your journey is just beginning, and you have years of change and challenges ahead of you. And that’s okay.
At some point you’ll say to yourselves, this is it, this is where we want to be. You may well be 50 or 60 when you say it, but then, what if you never do?
What then?
It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you are happy wherever, whoever you are, and with what you’re doing.
Do it all! Life is too short – a terrible cliche, yet so fitting.
Today is all there is. Yesterday is done and gone and tomorrow isn’t here yet. Live life today as if it were your last day. Tell those you love that you love them and always give your husband a kiss as he goes out the door.
I try to live by this little saying.
I think utopia would be a rather boring place. It is good to have goals and dreams but today is the day to live. I’m not saying I can do it. I always seem to be restless wanting to move on to other things and not be where I am. I try to remind myself that it is the journey that’s important not the end.
So I say take a look at your feet. That’s as valid as looking to the horizon. And you never know what you might miss looking to the horizon.
There may be some very interesting things to see at your feet.
Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans…!
Cool rocking chair.
Ok, so I don’t know about life either. I watch my kids grow up and wonder where the last 10 years have gone. My parents wonder about the last 40. Anyhow, as my kids are getting older, I am beginning to see that life won’t ever be a destination. They have so much to do and see and learn and I am thrilled to be on that journey, at least partly, with them…
The last 10 years went by like *snap*
I am guilty of forgetting to enjoy where I am now, rather i’m always trying to be somewhere else. I never really noticed how fast life has gone by until I remembered that some years ago I told myself “my gosh, i’m going to be 22 when the olympics get here… thats soo far away”, well the olympics have come and gone and all I can say is holy cow, where has the time gone. Its so extremely hard to stay in the moment, but I am trying as hard as I can, because lifes not going to slow down any time soon.
This reminds me of a story my friend told me. A guy wakes up in a cottage he’s never been in. The weather is perfect and he feels amazing. He goes to this little cafe on the beach and has the most delicious breakfast he’s ever had. He goes for a walk on the beach because it is a perfect day. He meets this beautiful woman and has an amazing conversation with her, she invites him back to her place and they make the best love he’s ever had. He goes back to his place and has a really good sleep. The next day he wakes up and finds it’s another perfect day, he has another perfect breakfast, he meets the same woman on the beach and they make incredible love, and he does it day after day. Finally after a week of this, he realizes that he died and he is in hell. Hell is the boredom of not having another problem to solve, another imperfect thing to complain about, not having anything go wrong that could make life more interesting.
And having no goals.
So Laura-Jane I agree, live in the moment, appreciate every breath you take. Find contentment and peace as often as possible. But do not stop searching for utopia, recognizing that the journey is the important part- more important than the goal, I would venture to say.
xoxo
I’ve been pondering this question a lot recently. It morphed from “What is the point of life?” to “What should I do with my life?” The answer that sits well with me right now is that the purpose of life is to help others and make the world a better place. So now my question has morphed once again to “What is the best way I can contribute to the world?”
I suspect that you are yearning for something beyond house and home. This could entail a vacation and/or some intellectual challenge i.e., enrolling in a grad/doctoral program at UPEI. If I can make a generalisation (and I’m always hesitant to do so because of the multitude of exceptions), I have personally found that there’s a philosophical difference between the technocracy that drives the BC population to build bigger and better things, and the traditionalism of places like PEI that are more satisfied with maintaining existing structures. The West Coast has a history of expansionist values whilst the East seems to have a certain propensity to resist change with its deeply held personal and socio-cultural history i.e., clans, old-world values, architectural preservation, a democratic routine, and other markers of a long-standing social history. As a former BC resident now living in the East, I have long considered that my West Coast ways are tied to the restlessness that is needed to build a ‘better community’ (a concept that is largely foreign to stable, customary communities) and the constant change that I saw around me as I watched Vancouver/Victoria turn into new places with new buildings and things on a regular basis. Somehow ‘being’ isn’t enough for us former West Coasters – ‘doing’ carries greater weight. It is very ‘Western’ to seek out that ‘certain something’ which is ‘better’ – my only relief has been to bury myself in non-material sources of comfort i.e., expanding my academic social networks, developing more face-to-face friendships, and communing with nature – the essence of achieving enlightenment and the deeper fulfillment of ‘an Eastern philosophy’ in my opinion. But, in my Western restlessness and seasonal bias, I’m also tempted to vacation (during Dec-Mar) in beachy, warm/Mediterranean, safe, palm tree filled, friendly places like Ocracoke Island, North Carolina (a full day’s drive from PEI). See i.e., http://villagecraftsmen.blogspot.com/ and http://www.jacklail.com/blog/archives/2007/06/ocracoke-island.html
Cam, the thinker! I know it used to scare me when you would get in one of your thinking moods. Look at you now!! You have achieved so much!! Love you & miss you both.
Try eating 10 raisins, one at a time. Note the way each looks. The taste. The texture. The way it feels when you bite down. Savour it.
For every goal achieved, we got that much closer to the truth, truth about ourselves, about the world. Sweetness indeed.
Test!