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>meant for great things This part of your post sticks out like a sore thumb. What "things?" How will you know when the "things" you have "done" are "great" eno

>meant for great things This part of your post sticks out like a sore thumb. What "things?" How will you know when the "things" you have "done" are "great" enough? What makes you think you are "meant" for them? What does "meant" mean? Was your birth heralded by a double rainbow or something? I'm betting that "great" is defined relative to some imagined ideal that you can never reach, or which you will constantly shift to ensure your own continuing dissatisfaction. Decide what you want.

gopher1 12y ago
Yeah, that stuck out to me as well. Thinking like that is a sign that there may be larger issues at play here. Truly satisfied and happy people don't believe themselves to have been destined for greatness in any such manner - even though they may or may not be as "great" as anyone else. And conversely, truly "great" people, are often the benefactors of circumstance and luck more than anything else. Focusing on attaining the greatness that you were destined to achieve is a recipe for lifelong disappointment.
- arunaugustine 12y ago
  Not attempting greatness, because of risk of disappointment?...I feel something is missing there. I don't have any answers yet though. There must be a third way.
  - gopher1 12y ago
    There's an important distinction between simply being ambitious about achieving greatness, and feeling as though you were destined, or meant, to achieve greatness. The former accounts for failure, while the latter does not.
peapicker 12y ago
This makes sense to me. In a lot of way, the current generation seems to have a lot of folks suffering from 'special snowflake' syndrome. It is drilled into people at school, 'you are special! You are destined for greatness!" But the reality is that they don't tell you theat most of the great things in life are free... A good family and children, personal happiness, friendships, love. These things make a person happy and satisfied. Even relationships I've had when waiting tables and the pride I took in doing that work was extremely satisfying (even if the hours were bad and the pay mediocre). But that was because of my attitude and goals, not because of the work. Now, I work at a very very large software company doing interesting, challenging work and am paid well for it. Despite all my great coworkers and satisfaction in doing my job, they are not going to keep me company or be my real friends at the end of the day. Work to live, my friend, don't live to work.

gopher1 12y ago

Yeah, that stuck out to me as well. Thinking like that is a sign that there may be larger issues at play here. Truly satisfied and happy people don't believe themselves to have been destined for greatness in any such manner - even though they may or may not be as "great" as anyone else. And conversely, truly "great" people, are often the benefactors of circumstance and luck more than anything else. Focusing on attaining the greatness that you were destined to achieve is a recipe for lifelong disappointment.

arunaugustine 12y ago
Not attempting greatness, because of risk of disappointment?...I feel something is missing there. I don't have any answers yet though. There must be a third way.
- gopher1 12y ago
  There's an important distinction between simply being ambitious about achieving greatness, and feeling as though you were destined, or meant, to achieve greatness. The former accounts for failure, while the latter does not.

peapicker 12y ago

This makes sense to me. In a lot of way, the current generation seems to have a lot of folks suffering from 'special snowflake' syndrome. It is drilled into people at school, 'you are special! You are destined for greatness!" But the reality is that they don't tell you theat most of the great things in life are free... A good family and children, personal happiness, friendships, love. These things make a person happy and satisfied. Even relationships I've had when waiting tables and the pride I took in doing that work was extremely satisfying (even if the hours were bad and the pay mediocre). But that was because of my attitude and goals, not because of the work. Now, I work at a very very large software company doing interesting, challenging work and am paid well for it. Despite all my great coworkers and satisfaction in doing my job, they are not going to keep me company or be my real friends at the end of the day. Work to live, my friend, don't live to work.