Embrace the right "wants"

Almost eight years ago, I moved away from "home" for the first time. I was a graduate of my hometown university with a year of post-undergrad employment experience. I spent all but one of the first 24 years of my life under the roof of either my parents' or grandparents' houses. The reality, though, was that in order to make a living of the passions I valued, the future awaited in an out-of-state graduate school.

Since that time, my wife and I moved around three states. Our decision-making process each step of the way included many factors. We looked at where we were on starting a family, our desire to own a home, and preferences as to the location with respect to closeness to relatives and culture. However, the overriding influence in our decisions, including the one that brought us to Eastern North Carolina and my current job, was the continued development of by professional career.

The path of professional fulfillment has not been without its share of difficulties or sacrifices. I know that my wife and I would find greater happiness in other areas of life if we directed our life decisions on where our parents and friends lived, or where we could find more people "like us." My skills and strengths suit many fields, and I could probably find a job that paid more than what I make now and enable us to enjoy the "high life" so many of Gen X and Y comrades seem to engage.

Regardless of these possibilities, I do not think I would change a thing. Our new "hometown" is not perfection or the top destination for our age group, but it works. The lack of rapid rise in housing prices enabled us to afford a home on my salary with a modest mortgage and start a family. At the same time, my "day job" is the best vehicle possible to explore opportunities, utilize personal intensity, and create solutions that fulfill the potential of my interests, knowledge, and abilities in a productive manner.

For many, the current economic situation forces people to reexamine their definition of "wants" and "needs," the age-old comparison used to allocate limited resources. Thinking back on the choices my wife and I made over the years, we certainly did not give into our material "wants." We live comfortably, but within the means of our available resources.

At the same time, following my passions on the career front, and enabling my wife to focus on her passion for starting a family, enabled us to achieve the personal and professional "wants" that are much more fulfilling than those of the material kind.

It is easy to think, given the circumstances many find themselves in, that "wants" are not accessible in the current climate, or that they should take a distant back seat to the most critical of "needs." These two realms, however, must achieve balance in order for us to maintain the psychological joy and fulfillment that enables us to perform, thrive, and achieve in the face of opportunity and adversity. Pursuing "wants" of a professional variety, especially if they apply to the knowledge, skills, and abilities you already possess and develop intuitively, provides the remedy for the reactionary impulse toward eliminating "wants" that leaves one feeling empty and regretful of lost chances.

The key to prioritizing professional "wants" in balance with material "needs" is the strength of your faith. When it comes to our careers, we often ignore our passions because we think it is the path to security. This often serves to whittle away at the spiritual fortitude we possess to believe in ourselves and embrace the environment of humanity, both success and failure, that God created. There are no substitutes for hard work and resolve, and if we choose surroundings that encourage laziness by ignoring what we know we were best suited to do, we only loose ourselves in the vices our religious subconsciousness warn us about.

Meekness is a state of mind. The reality that nothing physical or material is worth more than what we gain spiritually. Our passions are gifts from our Lord, and to embrace them as wants, and apply prudence in evaluating our material interests on the basis of needs, provides the path to fulfill personal destiny and strive to always achieve.