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.
‘All animals are equal, but [deaf] animals are more equal than others’
Urban Meyer’s drunken behavior points to deeper character issues
Genuine love is always extreme — and it rarely makes any sense
‘Vast military-industrial complex’ keeps growing and keeps killing
Was life planned before birth? What did you come here to learn?
How could a stranger at sunset possibly know what I had to say?
No matter what it is you believe in, some form of faith is at the root
If you aren’t free to to be a bigot if you choose, you’re not really free
If we keep waiting for perfection, we’ll always keep traveling alone
