In most situations in life you end up giving up one thing to have another. At least, that's the version of reality I grew up with.
Essentially almost everything we engage in involves some kind of trade off. If you have the steak dinner you don't get to have the smoked salmon dinner. If you have the cheesecake you don't get to have the fruit salad. If you choose to vacation in France, you're not vacationing in Florida.
Most of the time, we're so focused in the one direction that we don't really think about the things we have to give up.
Except, of course, some people do and they're generally the ones that we encounter where it seems like they absolutely cannot seem to ever make up their minds! Indecision? Or simply fear of foregoing something?
I watch these kinds of trade offs in very simple ways, even here in my own life. I choose to blog here on Hive, as a result of which my many blogs outside of Hive have been suffering.
Ultimately, the lesson learned here is that there often just isn't enough of us to go around to fulfill that old mythical promise that many of us grew up with, which is that "you can have it all."
Truth is you can't actually have it all and striving to have it all is often the reason we're always running and we don't ever seem to have time for everything.
Personally speaking, I have long been a big fan of having better rather than having more. But it's not a very popular approach and I have often been reproached for either laziness or a lack of ambition because I am typically satisfied with less rather than with more. Often, I have been dragged into the rat race once more because those around me - and I'm talking loved ones here - have insisted that I participate in the game!
So why is it that we think we should always have more? How did we arrive at this place where we think we deserve to have it all rather than having A or B we decide that we must have A and B? And why do we reach a point where we dismiss those who are satisfied with simply having A or B?
I suppose the easy scapegoat is the consumer marketing machine that portrays us as somehow failing at life if we aren't eternally striving to fill our lives with activities and objects and experiences.
Some might track it back to the Protestant Work Ethic upon which the United States was pretty much built.
I have always felt like life is rushing by at a much faster pace than I'm comfortable with. That said it has only been in recent decades that I have made peace with the idea that it's okay for me to be "left behind" by those who always seem to be running. It used to bother me at one point.
These days, I just want to enjoy life... slowly.
Thanks for stopping by and have a great remainder of your week!
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Created at 2023-12-21 01:10 PST
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