One of my friends recently committed herself to a healthier, fitter lifestyle. It started off as a very healthy change for her, but at some stage it turned into an obsession. She now spends hours a day training, documents and reviews everything she eats, yet is not training for anything specific.

She has stopped enjoying dinners out, popcorn at the movies and any social event which interferes with her training schedule or dietry regime.

I have another friend who used to be 100% dedicated to his wife. Everything he did was about their quality of life and the time they spent together.

One day, my friend was promoted. A worthy promotion as he really was the top performer at work, both in his own right and in the way he got the best out of all the people who reported to him. When he received this promotion, something changed. Quality of life stopped being his priority. Time with his wife stopped being his purpose. Rather, he started validating himself by furthering himself at work, by future promotions and by where he was placed on the corporate ladder.

Both of these friends of mine have beate Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,They have become slaves as their goals, the things they were working for, have been forgotten. Now, the work is all that is left. The work which was supposed to pave the way to an end, has become the end in its own right.

My first friend started her experience with the desire to live a healthier, fuller life. Today this desire has narrowed to a life that excludes anything not related to her training schedule. My other friend’s hunger for power and career success was so strong that it displaced his love for family as his number 1 priority. It became an end in its own right when previously it was simply a means to an end.

In the history of mankind, work for the sake of work was reserved to a societal underclass we call slaves. Other people only used to work to support themselves. Once they had achieved this, they enjoyed their lives with their family and friends. The concept of career is so new in the history of mankind, it can almost be called an aberration. Yet the majority of people we know get sucked into its myth, a myth where work is the end in its own right. As a result, people continue to confuse the means to an end, with the end itself.

Have a look at your own life. This is something I do all the time. Is there anything you seem to be dedicating yourself to, that really should be a means to a higher purpose. Is there anything you working on for the sake of the work, rather than the benefits that work should bring?

If there is, you have possibly enslaved yourself to an idea. If this is the case, ask yourself what this work will bring you in 20 or 30 years time. Happiness? Family? Friends? Or 20 – 30 years of opportunity lost, which could have been spent with family, friends and happiness.

Typically the people who become slaves to something in their lives, do so because they get so caught up in what they are doing, that they lose their perspective. Having lost perspective, the important things in life become muddied and unclear. If this sounds life you, there is a simple way to get your perspective back. You need to stop everything for one weekend. Go away for this time, on a retreat if you like. Spend this time thinking about and documenting the really important things in your life.

If you are a little unsure about whether you are getting perspective right, there is an easy way to check. The things you are doing, are they for a higher life purpose? If they are, you have perspective. If not, its possible you are still caught up in the idea of what you are doing. For example, working extra hard now can be part of a plan to achieve financial freedom and retire early. It shouldn’t be to get promoted to the next level in the corporate structure. The former is a life goal, the latter assumes another level of work is the end game, so you are working for works sake.

Going through this type of process, if done properly, will give you perspective. Once you have it, you will be in control of your life again. And being back in control, you’ll see work or training is there to support a higher purpose. And from here, you’ll have a vantage point from which you can recognise better methods, and oppotunities to find a better path to your goals. You won’t be stuck, trapped as a slave to your ideas.

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