Right from the childhood our parents set some ideals for us to aim for.
You are expected to be good at studies.
You are expected to get into a good school.
You are automatically handed over goals and you are expected to meet those goals.
In many ways parents are just conforming.
They see others do something and their concern for the kids' future motivate them to follow the ideals.
I would say pretty strongly.
Following is what ends up happening.
Beginning from the early childhood, you are expected to work hard so that you can get into a good elementary school.
As soon as you are in the elementary school you are expected to set a goal of getting into a great middle school.
And once in the middle school the same expectation is there for a great high school.
At any given time you are expected to score high and aim for the highest rank.
After all if you don't aim for the best there is the danger that you may fall behind others and may get lost in the oblivion.
The point is that right from the early childhood you are expected to aim for multiple idealistic goals.
Get into the best school.
Get the best rank in the class.
Get into the best sports academy.
Already in the best sports academy? Get the best results and get training with best teacher and on and on.
Different parents and families may have different attitude about how the kids should go about such goals.
Some of them are more relaxed compared to others.
But the point is that the elephant is always in the room.
This environment is pervasive.
Parents conform and the child follows, many times reluctantly.
You are continually conditioned to aim for such perfectionist goals from an early age.
The poor kid is always deeply preoccupied with how he or she is going to make it.
And he is expected to not let anyone down and is expected to work hard towards achieving those goals.
She prioritizes and engages herself in the activities that will lead to the goal.
This attitude and the expectations of the external environment are not limited to the childhood.
It gets worse as you grow up to be an adult.
Get into the best college.
Get the best possible job.
Get into an ivy league school.
Get into the best company to work for.
Once employed, climb the corporate ladder as fast as you can.
Become the manager as fast as you can.
Talk about and obsess about those who have done it and achieved their goals.
Of course, if you achieve such goals, you are overcome with joy.
You get an immense sense of achievement and you feel happy about it.
But that feeling of accomplishment and happiness is only momentary.
You immediately fall back to your base level of happiness where you don't feel much satisfied or fulfilled and you are already working towards the next goal.
Guess what, the majority of us do not achieve these idealistic goals.
We try hard and we may achieve some, but we miss many of them.
If you think about your overall lifespan, what does it mainly constitute? Is life mainly comprised of those glorified events for which we set idealistic goals? Not really, it is mainly comprised of a kind of journey that is sprinkled with a few events for which we want to have perfect outcomes.
Getting into a great middle school happens once.
Getting into a good college happens once or at most few times.
First job only happens once.
Promotions happen a few times at most.
The events that we are always anticipating and preparing for are really very few and far between, when you look at them from the perspective of our overall lifespan.
Our life mainly comprises of mundane things, the daily activities, that we consider to be of not much interest.
We focus on a few events with goals which we are most likely to miss.
We ignore the day to day journey because we are always busy preparing and looking forward to those few events.
When life nears end, we regret.
We regret that we couldn't spend enough time with family.
We regret we couldn't spend time with people who are near and dear to us.
We regret we couldn't visit the places which we really wanted to visit.
Why? Because we were always waiting for "the" event.
We waited to earn that degree before we visit places.
We waited to earn more money before taking a vacation.
We waited to get that promotion before starting to donate some money.
We have the wrong focus.
Journey is what life is all about, yet we ignore the journey.
We focus on the pit stops.
We don't enjoy the ride and always worry about the finish line.
We choose not to make most of what is easy and obviously available to us.
We run after something that we are not much likely to get.
As we ignore the journey, we miss tremendous opportunities to be happy, satisfied and contented.
We miss out on spending time with what is really important to us.
We miss out on watching our kids grow.
We miss out on visiting our favorite places.
We miss out on spending time at the places that we like.
And most importantly we miss out on taking the time and contemplating about what it is that is really important for us in life.
Why? Because we are always waiting for something else to happen before we take the action that is really needed to be taken.
We are driven by the blind conforming attitude and fear of not having enough money.
And we end up squandering our life.
The biggest regrets for people on death bed is that they could not do the thing that they wished for.
And no, these things usually do not need lots of money and resources.
They are the things which could easily be done, but they just need some of your time.
When the task requires money and resources, there are always choices available for us which are within our means.
We overvalue financial belongings.
You need money to survive, but you are always wrong on how much is enough.
For a contented and happy life, you need some money but you need lots of loving and caring relationships, many good friends, lots of good wishes and lots of blessings from other people.
People help you back in tangible and non tangible ways.
But we are blind to the other needs and we keep running towards the mirage.
Take some time and think about this.
Think what is important for you.
If you don't know, explore different things and find out what is.
Find out what is meaningful to you rather than what will just make you money.
Think what will make better relationships and more connections with other people.
Think what will enable you to spend quiet time at the beach, in the woods, at the religious place or whatever it is.
If you don't know which place that is, go visit multiple places and find out.
Go and do it now.