Blindly Chasing Your Dreams (is it worth it?)
What you could be doing VS what you should be doing.
While scrolling through YouTube, I came across a story called “Acres of Diamonds.”
An African farmer had just sold his land. There were rumors of precious gems waiting to be discovered in the great beyond. Ordinary men could transform their lives and drown in luxury. It was all possible. All it took was a little bit of diamond. Some already did, but there’s more to be discovered. Imagine finding an untapped reservoir full of that expensive mineral!
The African left everything and went on a grand journey to chase his dream.
No luck. He committed suicide on some random river.
The new owner of the dead farmer’s land wasn’t ready for what came next. He minded his own business, did what he had to do every day, didn’t complain about anything.
One day, by mere accident, he discovered…
DIAMONDS!
Acres of diamonds right under his feet.
This land would, later on, be the richest diamond finding in history.
Do you wonder why there’s always a nagging itch in the back of your mind telling you the grass is greener on the other side? For me, it’s constantly whispering like an uninvited demon.
Why should I keep studying accounting when I could drop college and pursue my dream of being a writer?
Why stay with this girl when I can chase another woman with bigger breasts?
Why live in this shithole of a town when I can make more money in the city?
There is a certain thrill in chasing grandiose dreams outside of current circumstances. But the more I go through life, the more I notice opportunities slipping away because I was so busy looking ahead instead of looking at what I had.
One of the things my father taught me was this:
Do what is in front of you.
I don’t need to be pushed by some magical, mystical force like “passion” to pursue something. I don’t need to “find myself” in some faraway land, some faraway dream, some faraway purpose. All of that is unnecessary.
By making irrational decisions from fear of missing out, we miss out on things we would’ve gotten in the first place.
Marcus Aurelius said something similar in Meditations:
Concentrate every minute like a Roman — like a man — on doing what’s in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice.
Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist mirrors Acres of Diamonds, strikingly similar.
The “land” from the story was probably the Mines of Golconda.
If you enjoyed my article, please consider reading the last one.
