by
Earl Nightingale
Here are
some interesting questions you might want to try answering.
One: If you could completely change places with any other
person in the world, would you do it? And who would that
person be? Two: If you could work at any job you could
choose, would that work be different from the work you're
doing now? Three: If you could live in any part of the
country you want to live in, would you move from where you
are now living? Four: If you could go back to age 12 and
live your life from that point over again, would you do it?
Studies
indicate that the great majority of people, even though they
have a certain amount of dissatisfaction with their present
lives and don't seem to be as happy as they might be, will
answer "no" to all four questions. A person often feels when
he's accomplished everything he's worked and struggled for
so long to achieve, he finds himself depressed more and more
of the time. He has a fine job and an excellent income, a
beautiful home, a wonderful spouse and children. In fact,
everything is finally just as he'd planned it for so many
years. And for no reason that he can put his finger on, all
the fun and enthusiasm has strongly disappeared. He's
listless and unhappy, and he can't think of a single reason
why.
This has
become a common modern malady, especially in retirement, and
it's what so often happens when a person runs out of goals.
This is when the game of life begins to go to pot, and the
person needs to remind himself of the basic rules for
successful, enthusiastic living. And the first rule is that
a human being must have something worthwhile toward which
he's working. Without that, everything else, even the most
remarkable achievements of the past and all the trappings of
worldly success tend to turn sour. Achieving our life goals
can be compared to opening our presents on Christmas morning
and watching those we love open theirs. We look forward to
the day, plan, and work toward it. Suddenly it is there and
all of the presents have been opened, and then what?
Well, we
must then turn our thoughts and attention to other things.
The successful novelist begins planning his next book before
he completes the one he's working on. The scientist always
has something new and challenging to turn to when he
completes a project. The teacher has a new class coming up.
The young family has children to raise and get through
school, the new home to buy, the promotion to work for.
But for
millions who reach their 40s and 50s and find they've done
all they set out to do and that there are no new challenges
to give them stimulus and direction, there often comes the
most trying time of their lives – the search for meaning,
for new meaning, and it must be found if the old interest
and vitality are to be restored to their lives, if they're
to achieve renewal as persons.
If you
understand this, even the search for new meaning can bring
new interest into your life. You've got to say to yourself,
"All right, I've done what I've set out to do. Now I must
find something new and interesting to do."
Source: Earl Nightingale's
The Essence of
Success,
edited by Carson V. Conant.
