“Living the dream,” she replied sarcastically.
I stared at her, flabbergasted, the epiphany dawning in my head as the sun rose on the horizon: I too was “living the dream.” I looked around the set, appalled at the misery of the entire crew “living the dream.”
Those of us fortunate enough to “live the dream” learn that it is mundane life.
Precious, mundane life.
As individuals we choose how we wish to live. Sometimes we make good choices, sometimes we make bad choices. Good choices are purposeful. Bad choices are purely pleasurable.
When accumulated over time the good choices lead us towards a goal. When the goal is reached and the achievement finally unlocked, there is a short period of celebrating the achievement before mandatory living of the achievement.
Doctors, soldiers, scientists, presidents—and to a lesser extent, lawyers—must endure the pain of hardship before the fruits of their hardships can be reaped for the new pain. Success is pain. Living is pain.
Satisfaction is attained once the resulting goal has been obtained, but this satisfaction is not unending pleasure. (You need to make bad choices over and over for 'corporeal unending pleasure.’) That was never the purpose of achievement. (What was the purpose? Desire? Slight interest? Whimsy?) In reality, the dream comes with more responsibility, new hardships, more stress. The immediate ‘pleasure’ of achievement is looking back fondly on the hardships, and looking forward to possible new achievements with everything learned from those hardships. Thus is life.
Before we all have to die, we all have to live.
Sadly, even retirement—life after the dream is over—isn’t unending pleasure. It is a time for boredom and relaxation and some trepidation in the face of the mystery of death. Even living the truth of "the dream" has its perks. It is not death.
Heaven is for death. And relaxation. Yet we can be afraid of the mystery of its unknown.
