Saturday, January 19, 2008

Business and love, and the love of business


A man is his work, and his work makes him a man. Today we live in a world of work and addiction. Simplified terms that are broad stroked with a wide brush, but our society does glorify the man who stays a little late.

Now in our heart of hearts, and most likely on the way home from the office, a man will wish he spent more time at home. People everywhere talk about spending more time at home. In reality that is what we all want at the end of the day. I once heard someone say that "on your death bed, your not going to say I wish I would have spent more time at the office". But is it really what we want?

Here is another phrase for you, "A man is his ego, and his ego makes him a man". I would have to say this is where the Buddhists have it a bit more right on. What keeps us from achieving our "true humanity" is the struggle against the ego. A person will naturally gravitate to what makes him feel good. No one wants their whole life to be an up hill battle. So a man will go to where his ego gets stroked to which makes him feel more like a man. People, specifically men, are natural conquerors, and a good victory will make him feel all the more a man. If you have not figured it out yet, a man is always looking to validate his identity.

Now this is not necessarily a bad thing, no a clear direction for a man to which he is naturally inclined is what a man was made for. Don't stifle what a man already has in his DNA, direct it to a productive life. Even in sacrifice he feels good about himself because he knows that what he is doing only benefits those around him. Just let him know that what is more desired is his presence, not his presents.

All of us, men and women, usually give the best of our days to our work. I am not sure how to solve this other than to be aware of it, just so that I can store some of myself away for those that really care about me. The ones who really love me, not the ones who only love what I can do for them.

A truth of life is that young men rarely need encouragement for passion, yet are desperately in need of direction. So love the people in your life a little more today. Make sure and go out of your way to let them know that you love them. Faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love. You will be hearing that a lot from me.

1 comment:

brandon cutler said...

well, i think that in this day in age people are to focused on there own life and making easy that they forget how important family is. For instance, many christians, and non-christians today make sure that they get there college work done before they get married. I think that this can be a mistake. The reason is that they are already putting there jobs or comfortability ahead of the family. They take the trust of Christ and others and put it on Money and the security they can buy with it.