“What do you desire?”
This year I turned sixty which I’m still coming to terms with because I certainly don’t feel it!
However, what I do feel is that now I need more purpose and meaning in my life and that there is no time to waste doing things I don’t like doing.
One advantage of aging is a sense of freedom, with nobody to impress and very little, if any, need for anything or anyone. So now I find myself asking this very important question
“What do I desire?”
In the video, Alan Watts raises some profoundly important points about how we live our lives and now in the later stage of my own life, I can see just how much of it I’ve lived pretty much unconsciously.
Doing things, I never liked doing because I didn’t think I had any other options. I guess that is why I am so grateful for my divorce and redundancy eight years ago. These two events shook me and woke me up to the reality of my life.
They made me look deeply at who I had become and how I was living my life.
Over the years I’ve had numerous conversations with my students about what they want to do when they leave school and a few stuck in my mind.
One girl was a great dancer, she absolutely loved performing. One day she came running into my classroom crying, so I asked her what was wrong. She went on to explain that she wanted to go to college to study dancing, but her parents would not allow it, they wanted her to become a lawyer.
Years later I bumped into the girl on the London underground in the rush hour, both of us totally sucked into that daily commute. We stood to the side for a moment so the rest could continue their rush for the train, and I asked her what she was doing nowadays, although I could see in her eyes that the sparkle was gone, she had already faded.
It turned out that her parents got their wish, she studied law but couldn’t get a job so was working in an office.
This story is not unusual, I had the same conversation with a boy that wanted to be a boxer and another that was a talented singer. All were persuaded not to follow their passion but to take a sensible approach to life. I wonder how that advice has played out in their life.
Is there another way to live life?
Personally, I’ve made it my mission to teach my children to do whatever it is they want to do and when that no longer works for them, then they should move on. You see what we seem to forget is that very few of us land dream jobs, and those that do, do so because they follow their passion.
However, more importantly, life is all about change and if at fifteen we know what we want to do, then we should do that. We are constantly changing as are our likes and desires. Sometimes, if we are lucky we will be aware of something that is always calling us and that thing is what needs our attention.
Otherwise, we must keep evolving so that we do not allow life to become dull.
Often we spend our lives searching for something without realising that the gift is life itself, so how can we take it so much for granted? Recently I was watching a documentary about Elvis Presley when someone said something that struck me
“Elvis was one person that left so much on the table”
It seems to me that life’s tragedy is to die without having created that thing you were meant to create so you leave it on the table.
If we ask ourselves “what do I desire?” and “what would I do if money were no object?”, the answer doesn’t necessarily appear easily because our mind is clouded by all the stories from the past. All those times we were told we aren’t good enough or that our choice wasn’t sensible.
Our mind is full of shame about all the times we already tried, and it didn’t work out. We battle with the constant chatting about what is the right thing to do.
But here’s the thing, all the great masters, artists, teachers, inventors, and history makers did exactly what they desired. They rarely took advice from others because they were completely immersed in the thing they desired. So, let me ask you a serious question,