While ironing I caught a random episode of Mad Men in season 5. The team was getting an award at some dinner. Megan, Don Draper's wife, had her father Emile there, at the same table.
“I always thought that you were very single-minded about your dreams and that that would help you through life,” Emile tells Megan. “But now I see that you skipped the struggle and went right to the end.” “It’s not the end, it’s the beginning,” Megan says. “This apartment, this wealth that someone handed to you,” Emile replies. “This is what Karl Marx was talking about. And it’s not because someone else deserves it. It’s because it is bad for your soul.” “Don’t pick at me with your politics because you hate that I love Don,” she says. “No, I hate that you give up. Don’t let your love for this man stop you from doing what you want to do.”
(Most of that paragraph came from another website, www.pajiba.com. Lucky me, not having to recall all those lines.)
Wow. Now that's TV trying to teach us something. Rare but possible, haha. Megan marries Don, and her dad thinks she's lost her spirit.
It's an important lesson for all of us, not to lose ourselves. We all have dreams of some kind or at least ambitions we want to fulfil. A hobby perhaps, something that keeps us happy, a personal contentment.
I remember telling my primary 4 class that I wanted to be an astronaut. Well that's not gonna happen but I would still like to look at the stars and get lost among the pin pricks of sparkly lights. A telescope would help.
Maybe not losing our dreams too much is key. Life takes us on the usual route for some of us - school, work, marriage, house, more work, kids. (I say some because who am I to judge your circumstances). Along the way we figure out certain things. That we like to draw, a nose for wines perhaps, a flair for cooking, a vision for origami, an eye for photography, a dexterity for number puzzles, hands and legs for tree climbing, musical fingers. Whatever it may be, an activity, physical or mental, that activates our happy centres. We should try to keep some bits of these in our lives, if we don't already pursue what some might say would be our true calling.
The Mad Men example I suspect exemplifies the sacrifices we tend to make as we jump into various life stages. Even love may prevent us from being at our fullest and oddly enough, happiest. It's scary but makes sense. My mum left her home and school to come to Singapore and had me and sister. I know she regrets not having spent me time studying than taking care of her family back home in Ipoh and then here. A childhood missed. She's pretty good with art and did some of my praised pieces in primary school. Well, we tend to figure out our regrets when we aren't in control of circumstances.
So do something. Today. Watch your kids and figure out their talents. Teach them not to forget. We need a happier planet.
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