Status, Salary, Sacrifice
Chase your desired lifestyle, not your desired title. People are blinded by status and labels. Once you release the need for a specific title, there is almost always an easier path to living your preferred lifestyle.
James Clear
Anything worthwhile requires sacrifice.
Success in any field comes with a price.
If we want to thrive in business, we must work long and hard.
If we want to be a world chess champion, we must spend years memorizing opening gambits, defensive tactics, and endgame scenarios.
If we want to be a neurosurgeon, we must invest hundreds of thousands of dollars and years of our lives.
There is nothing like the feeling of satisfaction we get when we pay the price and get the result we desperately want.
But what if we make the sacrifice only to discover the payoff leaves us feeling empty?
Maybe the goal was not ours, but our parents’ goal for us.
Perhaps we glamorized a profession, only to find its daily grind soul-crushing.
An even greater tragedy is if we spend our lives chasing status, wealth, and titles only to discover they don’t deliver the fulfillment we craved.
The temptation is to double-down and work harder, sacrifice more, and tell ourselves, “Someday it will all be worth it.”
But in this relentless pursuit, we risk losing the very things we sought.
The classic example is the businessman who neglects his family to “provide” for them, believing that wealth will buy freedom for quality time later.
There are two obvious problems with this plan: enough never feels like enough, and when he is ready for family time the family has moved on, perhaps literally.
What are we looking for in our vocations?
Most of us aspire to a blend of freedom, security, fulfillment, and personal growth.
We hope to attain a degree of freedom to do what we want when we want and where we want. Of course, no one has total freedom, but a significant amount of freedom is important to us.
We try to create security for ourselves and our family. Again, this can never be absolute but only to a reasonable degree.
We are looking for fulfillment, a sense of doing something important, that makes a positive contribution to the world.
We also need to experience growth to feel that we are approaching our potential. This is one of the key qualities that sets us apart from animals and robots.
The easy mistake is to think that we should pursue status and wealth so we can obtain freedom, security, fulfillment, and personal growth.
But these goals can often be achieved directly if we are clear about what we want.
So, what do you want?
Is your current strategy giving you those qualities?
Is there a way you can pursue them more directly?
By letting go of society’s obsession with labels, you might find an easier move — a simpler, more satisfying checkmate in the game of life.
Out now on Amazon: The Courageous Heart: Wisdom for Difficult Times, an Eric Hoffer Award Finalist. Grab your copy today.
