This quote is from a movie, which I haven’t seen. But I saw this post on Pinterest and I felt attacked. Whenever, I accomplished something big and I felt like, I should buy this or that to celebrate or for gratification. But if I stopped and took a second I would’ve realized that the accomplishment is a celebration already.

Ratrace

What happens is, we get stuck in this ratrace. Our life is already planned out; high school, college, a good job, uni, marrying your high school sweetheart, a great career, buying a house, a car, sweet kids, a summer house, and so on and so forth. This is the “right path” to take. It will lead to success and happiness. A construct designed by society to keep the money rolling and keep us busy. We actually forget to contemplate if we actually want those things. And even if we want those things, when are we satisfied?

Keeping up with the Joneses

This term comes from English-speaking countries and refers to keeping up with your neighbor’s social economic status. Today we could replace this term with, Keeping up with the Kardashians (or any other reality series) or keeping up with big names on Instagram. It’s a cliche but the content in series and on social media is only one part of someone’s story. Nobody has it all, so it will give us peace of mind to stop to match that level of so-called perfection.

Sacrificing what you need

What’s even more concerning is that we sacrifice something we really need for something that we don’t even want. For example, we sacrifice our time with our family or time dedicated to exercise for more work to hopefully get that promotion. We sacrifice an hour’s worth of massage to binge-watch a series. Now again I’m not encouraging anyone to stop doing or wanting something. I’m just asking to consider if it’s really what you want and need.

Image: Unsplash, by Mckenna Phillips