THE NEXT THING
We are goal oriented, meaning that we live our lives in the future. There is always the next thing we are to accomplish.
For instance, we are in preschool, then in kindergarten, then in grade school, then in junior high school, then in high school, then in college, then in graduate school, then in our first job. Then we have the quota we are to attain in that new job, then an even higher quota, then promotion. Then we want a new car, then a new house.
Along the way we get married, children coming next, whom we follow every step of the way as they hit their own road of goals, even though we are still on our own road. Which is when grandkids come along.
All too soon, though, we're in retirement. But do we really think we can just sit back and do nothing now, as though there were no more next things? What about that trip to Europe, that tour of the wine country in California, that book we always wanted to write, those improvements to our home now that we have the time to do them?
Always there is something else to do. There must be something else. What about volunteer work?
Missing in all this is ourselves, of course. We've lost ourselves amid all this striving, amid all this attachment and striving.
Shouldn't the next thing be ourselves? Shouldn't we stop with ourselves?
For instance, we are in preschool, then in kindergarten, then in grade school, then in junior high school, then in high school, then in college, then in graduate school, then in our first job. Then we have the quota we are to attain in that new job, then an even higher quota, then promotion. Then we want a new car, then a new house.
Along the way we get married, children coming next, whom we follow every step of the way as they hit their own road of goals, even though we are still on our own road. Which is when grandkids come along.
All too soon, though, we're in retirement. But do we really think we can just sit back and do nothing now, as though there were no more next things? What about that trip to Europe, that tour of the wine country in California, that book we always wanted to write, those improvements to our home now that we have the time to do them?
Always there is something else to do. There must be something else. What about volunteer work?
Missing in all this is ourselves, of course. We've lost ourselves amid all this striving, amid all this attachment and striving.
Shouldn't the next thing be ourselves? Shouldn't we stop with ourselves?
posted by Donald L. Simons at
9:24 AM
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