My plan today was to be silent, not write anything and give it a break for the day but no matter what I do there is always something worth thinking about and in turn that means that there is always something worth writing about. With that said, here you go. I have been noticing a trend with people lately and yes this includes myself, why does it seem that more and more we are becoming okay with just being “okay” what happened to wanting to be spectacular or above par? Why do so many of us become complacent with the position that we are in? Whether we are referring to our job, our personal relationships, our spiritual relationships or simply our own happiness. I am seeing more and more of this, ” ahhh I guess this is it” attitude. My response for myself is ” No This Is Not It” we need to get up and do something about this lack of drive or lack of perseverance.
Really look back in history and think about if all of our predecessors took on this attitude. Maybe they would have said things like, ” Ahh, there is no need to build this railroad” and ” Who needs lightbulbs, we can just live in the dark and only have light for part of the day”. In a sense that is what we are doing to ourselves, acting as if we don’t mind being in the dark because it is just easier that way. Do you remember when you were a kid on your first day of junior high? Did the teacher walk into class and say, ” Welcome to Junior High, Here you will learn to push yourself to achieve half of what you are capable of and we will show you that it is okay to settle for straight C’s, because that is what your parents want for you”. Absolutely not, and could you imagine if when you were getting married the pastor decided to spice up your vows a notch and say, ” Do you Raymond take this woman to be your wife on Monday’s, Wednesday’s and Friday’s and the occasional Saturday for Health and sometimes sickness until You decide to part?” Are you kidding me? Oh and one of my favorites, If you are a religious person imagine if you happened to be reading through the bible and you see a quote from Jesus saying, ” Thank you my son for half heartedly committing your life to me. He who is not ashamed to confess my name on Sunday’s and the occasional Easter and Christmas will be put on the VIP list at the gates because you have done so so.” Unfortunately I don’t see any of those situation working out. Settling for okay is more detrimental than just not doing anything at all.
I know that sometimes we do not mean to settle but it happens anyways, like that big project we take on and we know that we can get it done in just a few hours but it becomes tough and tiring so we leave it half done for a while and it may bother you for a week or so but eventually we become okay with it being that way and it is forgotten about. I look at this “project” example the same way I look at us as people and the way we just give up on our own happiness in some cases. You try to be happy, looking around every corner for the next thing to bring out that inner child in you and eventually it becomes tough and tiring and we just leave it and we think about it for a while and eventually we become complacent in our situation and never revisit it.
Once I started thinking about this and churning through my thoughts piece by piece I realized that I am guilty of this as well, we all are in one aspect or another but the first step to not being just “okay” is to realize that it is not okay to be okay. I have had the opportunity to meet some amazing people here in Las Vegas that are not okay with being okay and when you are around those people you know it. They wont settle for being mediocre in any facit of their life and there is always that obvious drive to succeed. One thing I do not want to get confused here is that If you are attempting to do your best and you fall short that is not settling to be okay, unless you choose to. The easy part is falling down, the tough part is getting back up.
I guess the point that I am trying to make with all of this is that we really are the only ones that can choose to not just float down the river we all call life, being okay with allowing the flow of water to drive our boat into the rocks, we need to sit up straight and navigate our path and if what we want is up river it’s time to get out the paddles and go against the flow, it will be tough and tiring but I know we wont just settle and pull in the paddles and let our boat be swept away with the current of life.
Raymond
All Things Raymond 