Create a life you can love

Many of us seem to be working very hard at living the high life, yet we seem to spend a lot of time feeling down. Are you pushed forward by people’s expectations of you? Do you do certain things, wear certain clothes and try to keep a certain job just to fit in with a certain social group? Do you spend your days ploughing through a job that you do not even like, fighting tooth and nail to get to the top? And have you ever sat down and asked yourself what is at the top and whether it is the best thing for you?

As Tom Sine rightly puts it in his book Live it up! How to create a life you can love, people everywhere are busier and wilder than ever before, but they no longer seem to have an idea of how to enjoy life and be truly happy. They are struggling to make payments on that car, house, equipment that they got (on debt) to impress the society and appear to be living the life, though beyond their means. He says, and I quote;

“In my travels, I have run into many good people. They are trying to do what’s best for their families. They try to be active at church, be responsible at work, to enjoy life. But something is wrong. They started out confident they know how to live it up, only to discover that life was getting them down. Know the feeling? Rushing! Running! Ripping around.

From the first bell to the final test pattern, life for too many of us is just one frantic dash after the other. We are working so hard to get to the top that we are making life along the way unbearable. Stress has become a national illness whose impact is reflected in troubling mental health statistics, growing alcohol and drug abuse, breakdown of family life and escalating suicide.”

Is that your story? Is life getting you down? Are you confused about what is up there? Then take a second to reflect on where you are headed and whether you want to get there at all. Is what you are rushing to achieve going to help you fulfill the purpose that God put you on this earth for? The good life has nothing to do with mindless accumulation and scrambling. The good life constitutes love, joy and living on even after we have passed. If we want our lives to have meaning and purpose, we must abandon the small stories and superficial dreams to which we have given our lives.

If we must climb up the corporate ladder, let us do so with a purpose, such as leaving our mark in the industry or making the company better. If we do it “to fulfill ourselves and the gap within,” we will end up disappointed when we get to the top and realise that it doesn’t make things any better.