When I was young, I wanted to be great. I wanted to be important, successful and powerful. I wanted to be put onto a pedestal, where I could get the adulation and approval I craved.
I wouldn’t have put it that way then, of course. I just thought I wanted the things my culture presented as normal goals for someone like me. (I understand now the degree to which being raised by a narcissistic father left me craving approval and attention.)
As I’ve gotten more emotionally healthy and psychologically mature, I’ve been surprised to find out that my desires in life have changed. It’s not that I’ve “given up.” It’s not that I’m settling for something easy after failing to achieve things I wanted.
My desires today are healthier and far more likely to make me happy. You see, I want to be ordinary. I want to be a good man. I want to be kind and loving and content with the joy of living an ordinary human life.
But I’ve recently discovered a fascinating paradox. As an ordinary man, I won’t have the things this world and our culture have always promised me. I won’t have wealth or power or adulation. But it turns out that the people who gain what the world and our culture promise won’t have what I have.
They won’t have the peace and contentment and joy of a man who’s living a simple and ordinary life.
‘What’s the worth of one warm smile? Go and ask the dead man’
I’m still the kid who might burn your clubhouse if you cross me
Would you have avoided mistakes if a psychic could’ve warned you?
A month after my father’s death, it doesn’t feel real that he’s gone
China’s one-child policy: Unintended consequences on a grand scale
What’s your goal? Do you want to blow off steam or find solutions?
Maturity requires all of us to learn there are arguments we won’t win
Barack Obama’s effort to imitate FDR’s ’36 campaign full of danger
What if a key to knowing what to do is built into everybody’s gut?