What I may lose achieving my goal?

934 Words | 4 Min 45 Sec Reading Time

We all have to face interviews, one way or the other, in our life. So, I started preparing, and the interview part came along, and there I read a question – What do you want to be in five years down the line? I sat down in a quiet place in my room, and I started thinking while knowing what really I want to achieve in 5 years down the line. Other way round, the most significant question that struck on me was, at what opportunity cost, or basically the alternatives that I won’t be opting for, or be loosing out.

© Benjamin Davies

While scaling up, I would have to sacrifice and leave some of the good times in my life because we cannot put everything in our bucket of life. So then, after jotting down what I would like to achieve, I wrote down the following things that I may lose:

• Poise and proper deportment with Personal life
• Maintaining good health
• Gratifying with my Immediate desires
• Keeping up with my Avocation
• Real good night sleeps
• A gregarious path
• My presence in some exigencies
• Take a break from my career

Many of you will think like.. What? Take a break? Then why I am speaking about achieving my goals?

So, let me take you a little back when I first had this thought. In the very start of my career, I just entered the battlefield with an amorphous perspective of persuasion. With my then mentor, who is an architect by profession, having great enthusiasm and always a different outlook to perceive everything. One day, we two were discussing some work stuff, and somehow we swerved away from the topic. We had a conversation about how he achieved his goal and what were the sacrifices he made. He then told me how he graduated and got married, and his wife took a break from her career to take care of their son.

Coming back to where we were, with all these opportunity costs, there will be a dilemma that many of us will fall in. We all have our own goals to chase, likewise, (I really don’t want to get married ever, but I am sure my parents will make me do, even if it needs to be done at a gunpoint) at some point of time I will share my life with some other soul, who will have her own dreams and goals which she will be chasing. And, then there will be a time when we will have to decide who will take the responsibility, and who is going to give-up/compromise with their personal objectives. I am sure that it will not be a matter of dominance or impartiality, instead a more conscious volition.

© Ehimetalor Unuabona

We have been born and raised to follow our own dream and to pave our own path. We all have the right to keep doing that. At this point in time, for me, I cannot foretell how difficult this phase is going to be. Still, I am sure that everyone who has been served with this quandary in life, must have faced it with a strong will and a good hope to knit a memorable future.

Regarding this, many a time, I have seen mothers who devoted not only their career but also their life. Not just to wean off the spoon-feeding of their child but to be with him or her to keep backing up at all the situations which we cannot imagine. And to that extent, where she even forgets, that once she had a resolution to act in her own vicinity of life. Without asking anything in return, other than glutted with a lot of complaints, she keeps on trying to ease other’s life, and many of us are somewhat aware of this. Still, we all act like we are oblivious of this act.

At this point, I cannot forget to mention my mother, who did the same and still doing without any reservation or objection. From the very beginning of the existence of my life without taking a day-off. Those sleepless nights trying to comfort me without any hesitation, when I was crying like a relentless contumacious devil. Taking care of us has always been her first priority, above all. From my toddler years to my adulthood, she never complained or never shunned down on me. 

So, let us answer the very question we started with, “What I may lose achieving my goal?”. There could be a lot of answers to this question, and it depends on what standpoint you will take. For me, at least for now, it will be the compromise – with my immediate desires, family, friends, and keeping up with peripheries in my life, which I have discussed above in some bullet points.

Now again, a question arises, we know what we are going to face. These impediments are inevitable in our life, but what and how we are going to alleviate this pain? For me, it is going to prioritize what I need to work on first. So I went through some articles, and I came across one – What 90-somethings regret the most. The first thing he noted was, “They regretted not cultivating a closer relationship with their children.” Although I am not in a phase to harvest these thoughts, but I believe there is no harm in cultivating these thoughts too. Today, in our ever fast-paced growing culture, we have the channels open to ask and learn in many ways about what mistakes elders have made.

I would really like to know what are your thoughts on this. Please comment below, or you can message me here.