Friday, October 30, 2009

Waiting to be “Discovered?”

Ever been to an event where a famous person gave a talk and afterwards you felt a funny sort of envious admiration for them? It’s a bittersweet sort of emotion, which leads us to identify something about ourselves—it is this:

Inside almost every human being is either an overt of covert desire to ‘make it big’ in this world. The truth is the odds of us actually cracking the big time in any of our chosen passions are probably 0.2 percent, if that. In some arenas it’s probably more like a mathematical impossibility.

So, what do we do with this? How do we resolve these facts in the mix of our desires to rise to the very top (or even mid) echelons of our selected fields?

1. Well, we could acknowledge that for all the fame and riches of reaching ‘the top’ there are a lot of down sides to that reality, like having very little private life. And when is enough ever enough, regarding success?

2. We could be realistic of our chances and opportunities and simply try our best; but somehow that’s not quite good enough to answer our dilemma. (We should realise, however, that when we “grow” our expectations in a way life can’t deliver, we will eventually be disappointed.)

There’s a commanding paradox involved in just doing what we love for the sheer delight of it; no strings attached. Even though we reject—at a level—that we’ll ever be a “superstar,” something funny happens.

We suddenly begin to ‘breathe’ and then we’re able to develop our chosen passions in ways that a stifling goals-driven approach might prevent. All of a sudden we can find ourselves with the best chance of ‘being discovered,’ as we discover ourselves!—and that’s perhaps, ironically, the richest form of “discovery” right there.

© S. J. Wickham, 2009.

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