So yes, getting sick or having loved ones die younger can absolutely, fundamentally alter the way someone lives their life.
This is absolutely true. One of our friends from college lost her battle with cancer at age 30. At the time, I was a hard driving type A overachiever who spent a ludicrous amount of time at work. Her death completely scrambled my values (in a good way). It was at that point that I realized what an asshole I'd been and began focusing more on the relationships in my life and less on my job.
Ten years later a good friend committed suicide. It wasn't the paradigm shift of prior loss, but it reinforced the importance of maintaining relationships and staying in touch. He moved ~100 miles away a couple years prior and I saw and spoke with him less than I'd like. I truly miss him and regret not spending more time with him before he was gone.
Fast forward to the present. Last summer, while waiting to board a plane in Europe to fly back home to the states, I found out that a family member died suddenly. He was only 12 years older than me. Weeks later, a close fried from our college crew contracted west nile and almost died. He's still in a care facility and my never walk again. Yet another person in that same group of college friends was just diagnosed with cancer.
Life is short, folks.
I wrote about this in another thread, but I was highly driven to achieve in school, but not for some vague sense of accomplishment but to be able to do meaningful work connecting with people.
I've been sick my whole life, so my perspective on what matters has always been skewed.
But while I was doing my doctorate and working 80-100hrs/wk, problem kept praising me for the "sacrifices" I was making, and treating me like I was somehow a "good" person for working so hard.
I was so offended by this societal praise and often clapped back that that was a fucking stupid interpretation of what I was doing.
I was spending no time with family, I missed weddings of my closest friends, I was doing absolutely nothing except putting all of my energy into my own success. And it wasn't necessary, the world didn't need me to do that. I competed ferociously with other, perfectly qualified students for my position in that program. If I hadn't gotten in, someone equally driven and capable would have filled that role.
The work I did to get in and the work I did to succeed and graduate benefitted absolutely no one but me. It was the most selfish, self-absorbed, and neglectful of my loved ones I have ever been in my whole life. I even neglected my own health, which is just embarrassing, really.
But I did it because I knew what I wanted to do career-wise to be really happy, and I was right. I was exceptionally happy and satisfied with my career. A few miserable years did end up feeling worth it, but had it been even a handful more years, I can't say that would have been true.
It was acceptable because it was very temporary and gave me the kind of career where I could afford to refocus on what mattered to me, while other career options would have indefinitely required "sacrifices" that weren't worth it.
These aren't "sacrifices" though. These are investments. And like any investment, they are either really smart, or really fucking stupid. The payoff is either worthwhile or it really isn't.
I temporarily pulled all of my investments out of health and relationships and made a play that was intended to payoff big time in terms of both.
But at no point was it a "sacrifice" on my part to take ALLLL of my resources and focus them on my own material gains and away from the things that truly make life worth living. I tolerated a brief stint of toxic self-obsession only because in the end, it was meant to *help* bolster those things that actually matter, and the timeline felt tolerable.
But in my career I was surrounded by folks indoctrinated to believe that that that kind of self-focus is what makes them good, valuable people in this world.
So they end up lonely, isolated, miserable, unhealthy, and disconnected from themselves and others. All the while believing they were doing everything "right," and that they have been piously "sacrificing" all along to do it.
Absolutely poppycock.
Topic: Race from $2M to $4M...and Beyond! (Read 1446764 times)
