norumba2 -> RE: Being in a relationship and staying focused on one's art ? (Jun. 5 2015 7:08:49)
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ORIGINAL: BarkellWH Regarding relationships and staying focused, very early on I decided that I would pursue my goals in life, in terms of both career and personal fulfillment (the two were not mutually exclusive), and that I would not allow love interests or relationships to deter me. I saw a few of my friends who had settled down and started families, and although they appeared to be reasonably happy, I could tell they fell short (even by their own standards) of the dreams they once held for the future. I dated one girl for a while until we were invited to dinner by a couple I had gone to high school with, and at dinner the guy said he wanted to go back to university and get a Master's in Engineering. After we left the dinner, the girl I was dating made a comment (referring to our host) along the lines of, "Why can't he settle down and be happy with what he's got?" Not wanting to start an argument I remained tight-lipped until we reached her home. Parked in her driveway, I could hold back no longer and said, "If you cannot understand someone who wants to fulfill his dream and escape a possible life of mediocrity, then you don't understand me either." After some debate, argument, and angry tears on her part, it was ended. One of the earliest literary influences on me was T.S. Elliot's famous poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," about a middle-aged man attending a party who reflects on the mediocre life he has led, never taking chances, always afraid of approaching a woman, never fulfilling any ambition that might be larger than himself. The following lines are representative of the poem as a whole. "And indeed there will be time To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?” Time to turn back and descend the stair, With a bald spot in the middle of my hair— [They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”] My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin— [They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”] Do I dare Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse." and the coup de grace: "For I have known them all already, known them all:— Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; I know the voices dying with a dying fall Beneath the music from a farther room. So how should I presume?" What killer lines. I vowed I never wanted to reach middle age and, looking back, sum up my life with, "I have measured out my life with coffee spoons." Teddy Roosevelt's words from his, "The Man in the Arena" are apt as well. "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” I am neither a T.S. Elliot nor a Teddy Roosevelt, but their words have been an inspiration to me my whole life. Bill this is exactly why i got divorced after 22 years. i love my kids that we had, but the marriage itself was such a derailment to my path and career. im fighting like mad to regain it.
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