Sink or Swim.... or Fly

Which are the best investments now? Do I rent or buy? Where should I go to college? What career should I choose? How should I live my life?

There are no universal one-size-fits-all answers to these questions… yet there is no shortage of sources providing them. The only prudent source of answers is yourself. For this reason, financial questions, pursuits, and planning must begin with self-knowledge...

"Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are." ~ Chinese Proverb

Imagine that your purpose in life is to fly: Throughout your childhood and adolescence, however, you are exposed almost exclusively to swimming. While no one person or entity explicitly tells you that you must swim, you are exposed to endless images, media marketing, and social pressures that all implicitly, but clearly, suggest that one must swim to have a happy life.

In your younger years, however, you continue to dream constantly of flying. When describing your dreams to family, friends, and school teachers, the responses to you range from "Nice dream but it's not realistic" to "Are you crazy? Flying is impossible!" As you grow older and into adulthood, you give in to the social pressures and conventional wisdom that flying is for dreamers, swimming is for winners.

You begin to keep your flying fantasies to yourself. Even in adulthood, as a seasoned swimmer, you often hear others say to you, it's a "sink or swim" world; but you know there is a third alternative and that this common phrase should be amended to say, "Sink or swim….or fly."

How common is this story?  Does this apply to you?  Can you see how social conventions slowly drown your dreams?   If your purpose in life is to fly, then how tragic is it to spend a significant portion of your life swimming?   For many, social pressures are so present and media noise so loud that they never even hear their inner voice -- they never even discover who they are or what they are meant to be. 

"Challenging the meaning of life is the truest expression of the state of being human." ~ Viktor Frankl

Often, the pursuit and acquisition of short-term pleasures, what is normally confused as happiness, is the quick fix that enables the continuation of life in absence of the authentic self.  When the money goes away, if ever, the feeling of emptiness that comes is not due to the lack of money -- it is due to the lack of sufficient means to continue hiding from the fact that your life has a significant lack of meaning. 

Unfortunately, there is no quick remedy for the loss (or the never finding) of one's self; however, there is a quick way to begin the journey of self-discovery: Minimize outside influences.

"One's own self is well hidden from one's own self; of all mines of treasure, one's own is the last to be dug up." ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

The authentic self is buried by conventional wisdom, media noise, and social pressures. To begin listening to your inner voice, whether you aim to be a successful investor, trader, parent, friend, artist -- a better you -- you must remove the noise of the external world.  The human brain is not fundamentally different than that of pre-historic man's; however, the environment has dramatically changed over the past 5,000 years. It is difficult to be you (or even know who "you" is) when the mind is full of messages coming from the outside.

You may never attempt or discover your purpose is to fly when television, newspapers, magazines, Billboards, other people, and most social media are sending messages that you must swim.

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Related:

Life Planning Part II: The Search for Meaning

Comments

[kid]

Nice reminder. Thank you!

[Kent @ The Financial Philosopher]

kid:

You are welcome! The "reminders" will continue...

Kent

[Jeffrey Jones]

Always excellent, Kent.

I think this is one of the reasons I love to travel and feel it's such an important thing for people to do. Getting away from the noise and pressures of my daily routines coupled with the open-minded wonder of someplace new always gets me excited about new (or true) possibilities.

Life's truer purposes always seem so much more clear when I've physically removed myself from the bombardment of messages reminding me to swim instead of fly.

[hotairmail]

Should I have not read this then?

[Kent @ The Financial Philosopher]

@ Jeffrey: Everything has an ideal balance. Life balance, if I may apply a broad term, for most people is rarely achieved. Simply "turning down the noise" of outside influences, whichever way it may be accomplished for an individual, must be formed into habit.

@ hotairmail: Great point! You'll notice that I included in the post, "most social media" as potential distractions. Blogs are social media; and I did not say ALL social media. There are no absolutes. I believe balance, moderation, and mindfulness applies here. To be mindful is to be aware. This post, hopefully, helps readers increase awareness, which enables the ability to maintain balance.

Now go back and answer the question for yourself: Should you have read this post?

Thanks for the comments...

Kent