Thoreau wrote that most people lead lives of quiet desperation. He had in mind the busyness that characterizes our days and prevents us from enjoying our lives.
Often, we dream about getting beyond the commercial formula of earning and making a living and project our thoughts ahead to the freedom that a sudden financial windfall might bring.
We indulge ourselves in reveries similar to those spawned by investment companies’ Freedom Fifty-Five commercials.
This kind of escapism is sad, because the chance for finding happiness no longer rests on taking the time to become a more integrated individual, but instead, becomes contingent on externals.
George Orwell satirized this view in his novel, Nineteen Eighty Four.
In the novel, the government keeps the Proles content by sponsoring lotteries to distract them from their bleak existence and offering them an escape by holding out the improbable chance of winning it big.
Sadly, this unlikely scenario becomes the only hope the average citizen possesses.
When people lose their way and lack a real purpose for living they often fall back on certain forms of escapism as a form of self-soothing.
In our society, TV shows such as America's Got Talent offer some hope for the disenchanted to have their few moments of recognition or notoriety—at the very least, they hold out a chance to grasp for the brass ring of fame.
Inevitably, however, these vagrant dreams are crushed along with a desperate sense of entitlement as the rejected contestants return to their unfulfilled lives, not accomplishing the American Dream.
I think an old Latin proverb says it best—don’t seek yourself outside yourself.
What constitutes a successful, fulfilled life? Well, for one thing, it comes down to knowing yourself and accepting who you are.
I still recall the turmoil of teenage angst and remember a friend of mine, a fellow struggler, coming to me one day with a look of triumph on his face. “I discovered something,” he proclaimed, “I found out I actually liked myself.”
Some time after this, I also discovered my inner me and decided that I too was content with who I was.
Unfortunately, I again lost my way in my thirties, placing career and achievement ahead of self- fulfillment.
One day I happened to read Lao-Tzu and he asked a simple question that turned me back in the right direction.
He asked, ‘what is better—ambition or contentment?’
This simple question led me back to a more balanced view of life and put me in touch with the Me I used to know.