P.S. I'd also like to add that a city's collective culture can also make you either stand on your toes (as in New York) or go with the flow (as in New Delhi).
One of my uncles [like me from Pakistan] spent nearly four decades of his life working in the same company in the UAE. He retired just a year ago. I asked him how and why he was able to be so consistent and perhaps not aspire to do something 'great'.
Let me add, he's a very content man who proudly says he's satisfied with his life. He told me something along the lines of "I just did work when I was supposed to, and enjoyed free time when I had it. No more, no less. I knew I would get a few promotions with time, I waited for them but didn't fret about them. And twice when I passed over from something big, I didn't fret again and just let it be. And now, here I am".
My uncle used to live with his family there and sent them back to Pakistan when his kids reached teen years as it was getting unaffordable. The family had a few hiccups eventually but visited each other back and forth from time to time.
My next question was rather pointed, "Are you glorifying mediocrity?" To which he replied, "No, not like that. Don't settle for the basics but if you focus on identifying your limitations, you can choose to accept them until you can truly do something about it. We toil and get frustrated when we push ourselves so much and achieve nothing but mental agony. Now that extra trouble is something I can choose not to burden myself with".
This conversation answered a few questions but it helped me temper down a bit. In my 20s, I was obsessed with being a workaholic, doing so much not just to improve my material lifestyle but also to seek the validation of others. Once I accepted that the 'rat race' is an injustice I can avoid, I became more relaxed and remarkably focused. Now, I can do a few things with more depth than many things superficially. To me, that's decent progress.
I get why the author of this story chose to move back to her home country. It was a bold but necessary step to focus on her own wellbeing, well done.
As we say in Pakistan, borrowing from our Persian friends, "Dair aayad durust aayad!" (Roughly: 'Better late than never').
True, there are no easy answers or formulae. In my recent readings, came across Derren Brown's book "Happy" where he writes that probably the best we can aim for is to live a life lived "well enough...an excerpt "I hope very much you’ll take some helpful ideas from this book, but if you strive anxiously to achieve a healthy perspective, or consider it an unachievable ideal, you miss the point. The advice of this book is there to take and use as it might benefit us, with an aim to live ‘well enough’. The ‘enough’ reminds us of the x=y diagonal of the healthy life: here are our aims, while here is the rest of life, which they used to call fortune, and we should aim to steer between the two.
Great article Pallavi Thank you! I agree with the writers assertion that happiness is related to expectations. But she leaves out anóther important issue; climate
P.S. I'd also like to add that a city's collective culture can also make you either stand on your toes (as in New York) or go with the flow (as in New Delhi).
One of my uncles [like me from Pakistan] spent nearly four decades of his life working in the same company in the UAE. He retired just a year ago. I asked him how and why he was able to be so consistent and perhaps not aspire to do something 'great'.
Let me add, he's a very content man who proudly says he's satisfied with his life. He told me something along the lines of "I just did work when I was supposed to, and enjoyed free time when I had it. No more, no less. I knew I would get a few promotions with time, I waited for them but didn't fret about them. And twice when I passed over from something big, I didn't fret again and just let it be. And now, here I am".
My uncle used to live with his family there and sent them back to Pakistan when his kids reached teen years as it was getting unaffordable. The family had a few hiccups eventually but visited each other back and forth from time to time.
My next question was rather pointed, "Are you glorifying mediocrity?" To which he replied, "No, not like that. Don't settle for the basics but if you focus on identifying your limitations, you can choose to accept them until you can truly do something about it. We toil and get frustrated when we push ourselves so much and achieve nothing but mental agony. Now that extra trouble is something I can choose not to burden myself with".
This conversation answered a few questions but it helped me temper down a bit. In my 20s, I was obsessed with being a workaholic, doing so much not just to improve my material lifestyle but also to seek the validation of others. Once I accepted that the 'rat race' is an injustice I can avoid, I became more relaxed and remarkably focused. Now, I can do a few things with more depth than many things superficially. To me, that's decent progress.
I get why the author of this story chose to move back to her home country. It was a bold but necessary step to focus on her own wellbeing, well done.
As we say in Pakistan, borrowing from our Persian friends, "Dair aayad durust aayad!" (Roughly: 'Better late than never').
True, there are no easy answers or formulae. In my recent readings, came across Derren Brown's book "Happy" where he writes that probably the best we can aim for is to live a life lived "well enough...an excerpt "I hope very much you’ll take some helpful ideas from this book, but if you strive anxiously to achieve a healthy perspective, or consider it an unachievable ideal, you miss the point. The advice of this book is there to take and use as it might benefit us, with an aim to live ‘well enough’. The ‘enough’ reminds us of the x=y diagonal of the healthy life: here are our aims, while here is the rest of life, which they used to call fortune, and we should aim to steer between the two.
Great article Pallavi Thank you! I agree with the writers assertion that happiness is related to expectations. But she leaves out anóther important issue; climate