Originally, I was thinking of expanding on my last blog post, or perhaps writing something about Love being a choice based on recent articles about Millennial’s and their relationship problems. However, I have elected to expand on Alethea’s post titled Chief Tui’s Truth.
Finding happiness where you are can be incredibly difficult, and the advice to do so can seem very condescending if it comes from someone seemingly standing upon an ivory tower. The reason for this is that happiness is malleable. What brings us happiness now is not guaranteed to remain, after all, becoming an adult is realising the importance of the people and things of this world. All things in must eventually pass. We cannot find happiness when we are called by circumstance to be sad. However, no matter the circumstances, we can find meaning and look for satisfaction in what we do.
I have known people who have chased a dream for years and decades, and once they have grasped that impossible dream, they have no idea what to do with it. Some have even turned around and started talking about what they regret missing out on due to the sacrifices they made for this dream. That dream, in the end, did not prove to be worth their life. This is not to be pessimistic, but rather to point out an invaluable truth; a dreamer only thrives when they are dreaming. Also, that many times what you imagine is not the inevitable reality.
I saw a video featuring Will Smith recently where he made a valid point; people are rarely willing to make the sacrifices for their dreams. This is true, but I would argue that sacrifice is not always enough. You can sacrifice time, blood, sweat, tears, and your relationships and still have it not work out. Sadly, success is not linear nor a curve. It is a rollercoaster, and one where the rises and drops are dictated by opportunities and our willingness to take them.
I tried to become a professional fighter in my early adulthood, and specifically a professional kick-boxer. I shall blow my own whistle, I had a winning record, and I even fought a couple of paid matches. One could say I was a semi-professional. I was willing to make the sacrifices, financially and emotionally, and even travelled internationally for a couple of bouts. It did not work out because I hit the wall of the fact I have a curved spine. No amount of training, and modern medical science, is going to change the fact that such a spine does not stand up well to the equivalent of experiencing several car crashes in half an hour. The only thing that could have changed my trajectory in life from that point was, well, not being me. I would have to be someone with out the curved spine I was born with.
However, I was presented with the opportunity to return to education and pursue another of my passions; psychology. I now have a relatively comfortable life, and a satisfying one, due to my taking this other route. I shall also be frank, becoming a psychologist required a lot of hard work. It was not the dream I set out with as a callow youth, but it took just as much sacrifice. Right now, I am working on my next ambition; a doctorate. However, the truth is that if a compelling opportunity that might pull me away from that showed up, I would be willing to consider that possibility.
Now, no one sat me down one day and told me that Kick-boxing was not going to work. I did not have some one with prophetic vision come to me and set me straight that my dream was futile. I will be frank, the choice was completely mine because that opportunity to go back to education was one I created for myself, and I took it. Yes, the injuries piling up and hitting a plateau in terms of my ring ability played a part in it, however, my last fight was a dominant victory for me. I won in under a minute into the first round. I was still seeing gains in my training as well. My punching power, and hand speed were still improving. By the time I called it a day I was lifting the heaviest I had up to that point and my road work was the best it ever was. All in all, I was still on an upward curve in my day to day activities.
Thus, why did I “Give Up” on trying to make it as a kick-boxer? Pragmatically speaking; a bird in the hand is better than two in the hedge. Several times as a fight approached I convinced myself that it was going to be the fight to change everything. Sadly, none of them were, and each time I was taking longer to recover from them due to the stresses on my back. As I mentioned prior, I made the opportunity to go back into education for myself. I was doing part time courses for my own entertainment at the time, because at the time they were free for my age group. Eventually, I accumulated the credit needed to pursue a degree, and now the rest is history.
The key thing is that I did not give up on myself. What I gave up was an effort which was seemingly going nowhere, and despite it being what I loved the most at the time, it was not turning into a livelihood. You can fail at what you hate, so you might as well try to succeed at what you love. However, you must ask yourself; who is going to pay me to do what I love? It is okay to give up on something that is not working, but never give up on yourself.
Something I read in the gym recently was this:
“The best way to predict the future is to make it”
Basically, the future is a product of the present. Anything you achieve in the future starts here now, today. Every opportunity is in some way made by our own efforts now. To return to those life-long dreams I discussed earlier, many came at the cost of setting aside opportunity after opportunity to do something else. Ironically, the happiest people I know are those who have followed the opportunities that presented themselves instead of chasing impossible dreams. For example, the people who settled down with the right partner and having children, instead of chasing a career that years later they have realised was not for them anyway.
You only get one chance at life; take the opportunities that come your way. Putting aside today for a chance at a tomorrow that may never come is not a wise gamble. With that said, it is important to have goals and ambitions, and some opportunities will not be the right fit for you. In that sense it is finding that ever present happy medium. A question I wish interviewers would stop using, but I find useful to ask myself is the infamous “Where do you see yourself in five years?”
Five years is a realistic time frame for making decisions, especially any requiring significant investment in terms of money and time. If you cannot visualise a goal coming to you in five years it is probably unrealistic. If you cannot come to a strategy that you can implement in that time frame, again, you are probably looking at something unrealistic.
Stay mindful of the future, but not by sacrificing the present. Also, keep in mind that every opportunity you turn down is a gamble on the future. Changing your direction can be terrifying because it requires a change of our self-image. To change our goals is to challenge our sense of what we value. If I give up on this dream, did I ever really have said dream? Yes, but you are just allowing yourself to value your happiness over an image of the future.
That is where finding happiness where you are becomes important. Cherish the choices you have made for what they have given you. Sometimes, those choices simply give you the impetus to change your ways, and that makes them as valuable as all your good choices. Also, remember happiness comes and goes. However, you are not going to find it if you are not doing meaningful and satisfying things. If chasing your dream makes you miserable; is it a dream or a nightmare?