Can doing the things that make you happy lead to success?
Have you ever gone through a time in your life where you feel like you keep disconnecting and trying to live up to everyone’s standards, and even though you thought you were, somehow or other? on the other, it just wasn’t good enough?
There’s this bar that you have to hit and so you hit it and then they raise the bar. Or maybe they didn’t raise the bar; It’s just that hitting that bar didn’t do you any good or make any difference in your life. Maybe things have even gotten worse.
It happens. Even towards people who you might think are truly “successful.” Someone just told me I was “famous” and I said, “No, I’m not.” I’m just a nerd in my house trying to help people with security issues.
It’s funny how some people see you and are impressed and these other people hold impossible standards to you and even when you meet them, it’s not enough.
Life is too short for all that.
It’s in these moments that I have to remind myself why I do what I do and what I really care about. I’ve really been disappointed and hurt by certain people throughout my career and every time it happens I think it makes me shrink more and more into my protective turtle shell. And it probably made things worse for me, like a self-fulfilling prophecy – but honestly, I can’t help it. I don’t want to “play the game,” as someone once told me. So I lose things compared to people who do it and that’s how it is.
For now, I just want to stay away from all that – the chatter, the promotion and all that. I’m tired of him. And it made me think about what really matters and what I really love. And the parts of my life that are really good because a lot of it is. It’s very easy to focus on the negative and forget about the positive, but if you look around you, there are probably good things in your life, things that you love. Focus on that.
I thought I should apply for RSA this year as I haven’t done so for two years and when I found out I was only a locum I was a bit relieved actually. Two out of three isn’t bad. And it’s so expensive to go there. I think I’m still going to give this talk, but I’ll probably post it as a video that I take at home. If they ask me to go later, it will probably be too expensive. And I’m not as excited about traveling as I used to be.