Ambitious contentment

Ambitious contentment

There is a point in your life when it becomes a fine balancing act to seek out new things in life.  It's not so much that curiousity dies as much as that over time, the naive curiousity and enthuiasm that a child might have is replaced with experiential knowledge.  I don't believe it is that an adult dreams less than a child so much as that the adult knows more what the consequences are for dreaming.  Oh, and the baggage.

Whenever I walk into my attic or my shed, I feel like they are earthly representations of my path through life these 38 years.  Whether I realized it or not, I have collected things as I moved through life and I have stored them.  Not all the stored items are usable. Not all of them are worth keeping.  In fact, there are some things that should have been discarded decades ago. 

So we move through life and there's a comfort point.   I was a young graduate student sleeping late, going out and playing music till all hours of the night, getting up bleary eyed and stumbling into Sanskrit class the next day at 8am and trying desperately to keep up with the goings on.  Next thing I know, there's a mortgage, two cars, a job, a wife, a rascally daughter, and a whole lot of stuff.  There's so much there to be thankful for, and so much that it's quite easy to be content.  And yet, there's also this curiousity and a burn to go out and do more.

Where's the balance?

It is said that it is not so much material possessions that cause suffering but your attachment for them.  This Buddhist philosophy rings very true in a lot of ways.  The same applies for attachment to possessions, titles or achievements not yet accomplished.  The question then becomes whether it is possible to be ambitious and content at the same time?  If the answer is that it is not possible, then what do you make of all the advice about setting goals for yourself so that you have some structure and ascendancy during your time on this earth.  Is it just a matter of different philosophies?  Or is it possible to apply them all in the same web that is called existence and intertwine them into the limited time space continuum that constitutes the punch in time on earth?

I have found myself becoming a lot more content in this last decade.  When I was in my twenties, I was nervous about growing old.  I didn't know what I would do in my 30s and 40s as I didn't feel like I would get enough achieved.  There was a nervousness not about getting things done, but just about not knowing exactly what it was that I valued.  That changed after I had a child, and I got a sense of what my priorities were and what was important.  Interestingly enough, just the thought that I wanted to be content was a goal in and of itself.  Whenever I had glimpses of it, I felt a huge sense of achievement and peace.  It was a nice way to ease into being thirtysomething.

It is also at this time that I became conscious of not dreaming large.  I didn't think for example about becoming the best at something, or making a worldwide impact.  All my goals were shaped and scoped by the things, experiences and baggage that I had picked up along the years.  The nice thing is that the contentment is easier to find.  The question is whether I could achieve more if I was to be more ambitious in what I stretch for.

I always wonder how people attack the day, how they set their goals dreams and ambitions.  The burning question of course is whether it is possible to set ambitions and goals up, and then live a content life while you strive for it.  Is that the definition of a Zen state of mind?  Is that the lesson that mighty Arjuna learned on the battlefield with his hundred cousins, teachers and armies lined up in front of him?

What do you dream about? How do you decide what to pursue and what to leave go?