I’ve been working a lot on figuring out what it is I want, and the internet and great writers’ insights have been helping me to try and figure things out. I haven’t read this book, but I did pull a quote from it that I really think is important to remember when in the process of trying to figure things out for yourself and your life.
From Alain De Botton’s The Pleasures of Sorrow and Work:
“One of the interesting things about success is that we think we know what it means. A lot of the time our ideas about what it would mean to live successfully are not our own. They’re sucked in from other people. And we also suck in messages from everything from the television to advertising to marketing, etcetera. These are hugely powerful forces that define what we want and how we view ourselves. What I want to argue for is not that we should give up on our ideas of success, but that we should make sure that they are our own. We should focus in on our ideas and make sure that we own them, that we’re truly the authors of our own ambitions. Because it’s bad enough not getting what you want, but it’s even worse to have an idea of what it is you want and find out at the end of the journey that it isn’t, in fact, what you wanted all along.”
This helps me remember to not covet what it appears that other people have, and to remain focused on myself and my own shit. It also strikes a little bit of fear (the good kind) in me to really be motivated to find the work I love to do and the life I want to live, and just live it. As to not end up like someone who may strive hard for what they think others want for them or what they think success is- only to find in the end, it doesn’t make them happy.