”’I wish I will have a life like yours when I grow up.’
‘How do you manage to be involved in so many projects?’
‘When do you have time for everything?’
I have often heard these statements, these questions. Maybe so, after an age, some people see something in you and have the generosity to tell you.😇
Part of me is grateful, glad, of course, that some people find some inspiration in what I do, in getting involved in various causes, projects. I’ve always run away from stagnation, the boring life of having a job, a house, household responsibilities and that’s about it. I like diversity, maybe I need it to feel good.
Thinking about the bigger picture, however, the other part of me is somewhat worried, wondering. People see the result of effort, compromise, giving up, often long-term self-discipline, almost a lifetime.
If it looks like I have the life some people want, I wonder if they see what’s beyond the surface. It’s like that image of the swan on the water. The swan is floating, it looks calm, majestic, elegant, but what is going on under the water? How hard do its feet struggle underwater to keep it afloat?
For many years I got up at 5 am to read, write, listen to TV in English and French. And no, I didn’t go to bed at 7 o’clock at night, with the chickens, as they say. I studied a lot, went to school many times after college, even still thinking about some studies, in other directions. I carried burnout on my feet for years until it got fed up and left me alone. Even the ambulance doctors kept getting bored visiting me every month.
All of this is far from worthy, far from admirable. That’s how I knew, that’s how I saw it at home: that you take ownership and responsibility, not just on a declarative level but by everything you do, you don’t give yourself away, you don’t claim you had measles as a child, you have a bigger ear and you can’t.
But I don’t count here. What matters is the idea that the road to a result is very important. We want to be somebody, to be in some way, but we often forget to study what that person’s journey has been, what the actions, the renunciations, the compromises, sometimes the sacrifices have been.
A student asked me three years ago if it is true that only through relationships, connections, dubious actions and influence can you become someone in life. It’s difficult for teenagers to find role models: on TV and social media, they find many so-called stars who have remained in the aesthetic period of their lives, as Kirkegaard said. They rely only on how they look, who they align themselves with, to ‘make it’. To aim only to have money in your life is to self-limit, to take from the world’s myriad possibilities only money. It’s like looking at the world through a keyhole and seeing only a glimpse. It is an impoverishment of an individual’s potentialities.
But there are also people who have come to be known because they have studied, researched hard, given up some pleasures to follow their path, their deeper, higher mission. It is essential to understand their path, what choices they made, what efforts were needed to get there. There is no point in wanting to be a tennis champion, like Simona Halep, if I am not willing to train every day for 10 hours (or more) for many, many years, to give up parties, clubs, various pleasures.
If I want the life of a great tennis player, I have to take on the efforts, the renunciations, the necessary sacrifices. Is it worth it?
It depends.”
via: Forbes