Lifestyle Choices

There are times in your life when it is tempting to think “Ah! that’s it, I’ve got it now — all I have to do is carry on like this and I’ll be OK”. Unfortunately it never works like that because life changes, and you change, and what is appropriate for you now may be completely inappropriate in a yearor two’s time. Keeping abreast of what is right for you at a certain moment involves nothing more than the whole art of living — and that involves the development of an inner sensitivity to your own person and an outer sensitivity to others, your environment and the trends of the world.

Change is also necessary because some things simply get boring. On the other hand every pattern you develop has its own comfortable feeling of security. You need the wisdom to judge which patterns are boring and deaden your vitality and which patterns are usefully continued so that necessary programmes can be repeated quickly and efficiently, leaving more time for the development of more creative pursuits. You also need to ask yourself which patterns give you real pleasure from a kind of ritual, and which patterns only provide security against novelty.

There is a great deal of cultural pressure which tends to put you in a particular role or stream of activity. When I took nine months off from medicine I was told by many people, both within and without the profession, that it would ruin my career, and that it would be difficult for me to get another job, or at least a good one. When I applied for my next job, I had no difficulty whatsoever and realized that all the good intentions and advice that I had received were based on the fear that doing something different, for whatever motive, would be judged as unacceptable. Sometimes colleagues, friends and family will try to stop you because a change may threaten their ideas. At other times you find it hard to change your role because any new role is unknown and cannot be realised without anxiety. Because of these pressures and fears, many people stick at something they do not really enjoy or that they have grown out of. How easy it is to dream of wonderful possibilities while you slavishly follow your old depressing pattern and comfortable ways.

For a life lived more in the “gold”, you may find that different times in your life require different kinds of work, different kinds of experience and different kinds of friendships. On the other hand, some constant developing friendships, some constant patterns and the constant development of one line of work may be productive and exciting for you. The question and the art is which and when.

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