Monday, October 4, 2010

Musings on a milestone

I confess to having something akin to a midlife crisis. For all these years, I worked to build the relationships and assets that I wanted out of life, such that I now consider myself to have the:
- Perfect child
- Perfect man
- Perfect friends and family
- Perfect education
- Perfect career
- Perfect house
- Health that is as good as can be expected for my age group (I stop short of using the “P” word mostly out of superstition)
- Not independently wealthy (never wanted to be) but have adequate financial savings / retirement trajectory (ditto on the “P” word)

SO WHAT NOW?? My entire life up until this point has been geared toward remediating the type of deficiencies that naturally characterize the experience of youth. In the context of that original directive, I've got nothing left to do!

That means I either have to expend my forward energy on improving perfection (which seems dull to me - I'm at the point of diminishing returns) or on choosing some new mountain to climb.

If new mountain, which one and for what reason? 

Even if I pick a mountain, there are still many variables and pathways to the top.  For instance, do I devote more effort to making social contributions, which I would actually like to do?  If so, which one(s)?  Do I pick one of those I would find most rewarding but maybe wouldn't be that good at, or do I go for greatest bang-for-buck by either exploiting myself or making the type of financial gains that could be leveraged by others who are in a better position to do it?

Ultimately, I'll figure it out, but it's an interesting headspace - a new type of predicament for me. 

 

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