Do you realize that “This may be as good as it gets?”…

 I love that movie. 

At what point does one say, “Okay, I have enough.  I have everything that I could possibly have.  I can’t have it all, so I have enough?”.

When you make sacrifices in your  life, how do you choose what to sacrifice?  I am interested, because I don’t recall making that choice.  I recall making the next best choice in my life based upon options available to me at the time, but I don’t recall actively choosing exactly what I will sacrifice.  Maybe that’s why I have moved 17 times in 17 years.  Next best thing in front of me.

I did, however, choose what I will have professionally.  I have exactly what I willed to have in my career.  The rest, I left up to fate.  I think that life, society, or whatever, teaches us that some things in our life, those personal life things we covet, are “up to fate”, and others are of our own making.  Is that true?

I certainly have control over my professional life.  I can certainly will that, and have absolute control over it.  But what about the rest?  What about family?  What about relationships?  Can you choose that?  Or does it just happen?  Do you take what life puts in front of you, or do you go after it the same way you go after your professional career?  I was taught that those types of things just “happen”, and you “make” your professional life happen.

What do you do when those things that are supposed to “just happen” do not happen?  What do you do when you wake up and realize, “Hey, I chose the career, I chose exactly what would happen, and I suppose I assumed the rest would happen on its own, because that’s what I was taught?”… What do you do when you wake up and realize, “Hell, I have everything and more that I could ever need and want, but god, it sucks to not have someone to give it to?”  Traveling alone sucks.  Have you ever done that?  I do it all the time.  Going to the park alone sucks.  Been there?  Going to a movie alone sucks.  Done that?

Who says that there is “someone out there” for each of us?  I have many friends, friends of the family, who have spent their entire life alone.  No God, no One, guarantees that “that person” is out there.  Look at the people who spend their life alone, thinking that life was going to make “fate” happen.  What happened to them?  I think that we were sold a crock of shit.

There is a spectrum. It is the spectrum of compatibility.  The reality is that there is always someone more compatible with us than the one we are currently with.  We choose the point at which we are willing to settle on the compatibility spectrum.  Okay, so I chose crap for compatibility.  Two times.  I admit that.  :-)  But, the obvious statement is that I was willing to settle, because someone was willing to settle with me.  Live and learn.

 So, what does one do when one realizes one has so much to share, and one has no one to share it with?  What do you do?  Work out like crazy?  Starve yourself to death?  Go to a bar?  Find some hobbies and join groups?  Look online? 

My generation is the loneliest generation.  We have the greatest number of portals in which to communicate with others, and yet we find ourselves incredibly lonely, marrying poorly, divorcing early, and sharing children with others.  That’s a whole other story, as to why we do this as opposed to our grandparents, so I won’t go into that here.

Anyway, the point is, at what point did you realize that you were leaving your “choices” to fate, and what did you do about them?  Did you just continue to “hope” that fate would work?  Or did you do something specific to “will” those things to happen that we were always taught we had no control over?

Did you give up your money?  Did you give up your life?  What did you sacrifice to finally have exactly what you wanted, but were told it was left to fate?

What did you sacrifice from fate that you wanted within your control?  Did you sacrifice the relationship, the family, for the career?  How did you determine which made the cut?

I can’t figure that one out.  Life is complicated; and I guess, that’s what keeps us going.  But at some point, you just sigh, and say to yourself, “How much money and professional success is enough to pretend that nothing else matters?”