It manages to expand and melt my brain at the same time.

Interesting post. I’m trying to start my own business at the moment and there’s a big difference between how I imagined and how difficult it actually is. But I know that taking on a challenge will improve me so I’m trying to plough ahead.

More excellent words were never spoken. Enjoyed the post (thanks for the shoutout!) and had a great time last night. Let’s do it again soon.

As an example, I can tell you that I had a friend who went to college to be an engineer because he was sure he’d ride an easy gravy train when he graduated and live some sort of perfect life. He learned he didn’t like engineering and struggled until he changed his major to English, which he not only enjoyed but had a knack for. His goal of working at a high level tech company having wads of money changed, but it didn’t happen because he wasn’t in control, but rather because he learned that personal fulfillment was more important than career. He ended up working at a tech company as a writer anyway, and makes decent money, though not as much as an engineer. However, his job can’t be easily out-sourced and he has better job security than engineers now.

Letting go of ambition is often seen as giving up, but it’s often more of a change in life direction and focus. Also, as you get older, your energy diminishes, you have greater responsibilities, and you don’t have the same physical capacity. Your options, which you may once have labored under the illusion were limitless, are diminished as a result of these thing and that can be seen as losing control as well. Priorities change, but that doesn’t mean your aren’t the star of the show. You’re always the star. You just slowly realize that you were once far more naive than your realized and that a lot of the things you thought were so very, very important really weren’t. Younger people than you (now that you’re no longer part of the “immortal” youth generation) think you’re out of touch because you don’t validate their lives by living according to their values, but you aren’t out of touch. You’re actually more in touch with the nature of your reality than they are.