photo by Rockmixer

I’ve been asked this question more times than I care to remember.

There are many variations of this question. The most popular being “what do you want to be when you grow up?” We ask this question without even thinking, hoping to gain validation for our own decisions in life. Teachers ask this question to their students for validation in their own teaching methods. Likewise, parents ask this to their children to validate their own parenting skills. We are inundated with all sorts of similar inquisitions during every major stage in life.

Like most people, when asked on-the-spot to summarize my life’s ambitions into a well thought out, articulated response, the first thing that usually comes out of my mouth is:

“Uhhhhhh….”

This reminds me of cattle handlers whose job is to guide the cattle back into their pen The cow is reluctant at first, and only after being poked and prodded into submission, will it scurry back into its pen like well behaved livestock

I would wager that if that cow studied kung-fu, it would deliver a swift back leg kick to the handler’s groin each time it was prodded.

I have a similar reaction when someone asks me the question, “So what do you want to do in life?”

Even though I may not say it aloud, what i’m really thinking is:

“Absolutely nothing. I am great doing exactly what i’m doing. But thanks for asking.”

If people were like cows, they would keep moving along the path along which the farmhand guides them.

The cow has no choice. It must go wherever the farmer wants it to go. Ironically, this is also how most people operate. They are guided by an invisible hand, but in most cases, it is not their own. It belongs to their parents, their college professors, their idols, and other influential people.

Fortunately for us, we have some added benefits of being human. One of those benefits is having the ability to choose what we want to do. What we choose to do is entirely up to us.

Something that anyone can do right now is to let go of the past and future and simply be present.

Life is not about going towards a destination, gaining respect or the accumulation of foreign objects. Constantly running from one point to the next will ensure only one thing: more running.

Nomadic Matt wrote an article about his nomadic lifestyle and the reason why he constantly travels around the globe to explore new places. It contains some very interesting points about living without boundaries and without the comforts of having a “real job”.

Matt makes a great point when he says “We are all chained down by the burdens we create upon ourselves.”

I love this quote because it is so true. We create our own self-imposed borders, whether they are financial, emotional, or both. We box ourselves into these little crawl spaces where there’s barely any room to maneuver, much less break free.

Even though we are all conditioned to think and act a certain way, there’s no reason why old habits and thinking patterns can not be changed if so desired.

I keep hearing the following phrases.

“I need a raise so that I can move to a bigger house with two garages and a big backyard”

“I’m going to work for the next 20 years and then retire to an island in the South Pacific.”

Both of these phrases means that the destination has become more important than enjoying what you have, which is the only thing that is real. Why spend your entire life in some theoretical future when you can be enjoying the present for exactly what it is.

The future is an illusion.

I am not saying that you shouldn’t set goals. Far from it. I believe people should aim high in whatever they set out to do. But if the goal becomes the destination – an end in itself – it will consume a person’s life to the point where he/she can never be truly fulfilled.

If you allow yourself to enjoy the process of achieving that goal, the results become meaningless.

We live in a society where too much emphasis is placed on results. No one hardly ever stops to just be alive in the present moment. Instead, they prefer waiting for their ship to come in, but in doing so they allow bigger, better ships to sail right across their bow.

Take a hundred students enrolled in school. Say those students study really hard. They will eventually earn a diploma, degree or certificate of some kind. When asked what they expect to get out of it, most will say “to get a good job, marry at 25, have 3 kids and move into a 4 bedroom house.”

Good grief! So much emphasis is placed on the results that people forget what’s directly in front of them now. What’s worse is that people will acknowledge that happiness can not come to pass until the above criteria is met. Instead, they defer happiness to some theoretical future that doesn’t exist.

Only when we break free of the mold and think about the possibilities that exist beyond those self-imposed borders will we discover just how much more there is to experience.

What is real is NOW. Not in the past and certainly not in the future.

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