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Sacrifices

ebola?

ebola?

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Must there be sacrifices to live a fulfilling life?
What is the character of such sacrifices? How do they relate to fulfillment? By fulfilling life I mean, doing a job in society which in some way involves more than being just a "cog" in a machine, doing some robotic task in an office that takes no advantage of your meta-"human" abilities.

For instance we all know that doing such a soul-crushing job involves sacrifice--anomie, isolation, the feeling like you aren't important in the grander scheme.

But what about the inverse? What sacrifice is involved in absolutely pursuing your dreams, if you are fortunate enough to have identified them? How do YOU navigate this line?

ebolavac
protobola
 
It depends on what you want to achieve. If your sense of 'fulfilment' requires that you do something that is going to make your life more difficult in the short term (or even the long term, for that matter), then of course you will have to sacrifice something. Conversely, if you don't feel that you need to be outstanding to live a fulfilling life, then you may not have to make sacrifices (although it would be hard to imagine a fulfilling life which is entirely uneventful).

I, for example, work as a programmer. My current job is making business analytics software. I want to get into game development, yet every other programmer I've met thinks I'm crazy, since game dev is pretty hectic (long hours, unpaid overtime etc). Yet, I still believe it's something I have to do. And in the future when my career path makes its next turn, I hope I'll be ready to take the plunge. It will involve making sacrifices. And it will be an adventure.

The things you sacrifice are up to you. Make sure that any you do make are worth something.
 
^ Yeah me too. I almost expected a discussion of Santeria. =D

I think the biggest sacrifice one must necessarily make to grow as a person is that of instant gratification. Very few people, I reckon, ever achieve long-term goals, or truly transform themselves into much better human beings, without disciplining themselves to abstain from cheap thrills, easy answers, and attractive side distractions. This is not to say that people who find long-term fulfillment NEVER indulge in these. But show me someone who JUST CAN'T REFUSE them, and I'll show you someone who's probably a bit 'stuck in place'.

One big sacrifice I've had to make is realizing that if I want the career I'm headed for, I cannot pursue all the things I'm talented at or interested in. I've had to become more realistic about my time and energy being limited resources, and not expecting more of myself than is humanly possible. A stimulant habit helped me stave off that realization longer than some other people my age, but that was just delaying the inevitable.

Great thread, ebola.
 
ebola? said:
Must there be sacrifices to live a fulfilling life?
What is the character of such sacrifices? How do they relate to fulfillment? By fulfilling life I mean, doing a job in society which in some way involves more than being just a "cog" in a machine, doing some robotic task in an office that takes no advantage of your meta-"human" abilities.

For instance we all know that doing such a soul-crushing job involves sacrifice--anomie, isolation, the feeling like you aren't important in the grander scheme.

But what about the inverse? What sacrifice is involved in absolutely pursuing your dreams, if you are fortunate enough to have identified them? How do YOU navigate this line?

ebolavac
protobola
Click to expand...

I think in some ways sacrifice can be a simple, justifiable behaviour. We incrue a lot of debts as we live; being aware of these debts and being willing to pay for them (sacrifice) can sometimes make everyday sense. Sacrifice can contribute to survival.

Also, being aware of this web of borrowing/lending is being aware of a wider interconnectedness - which is often connected to fulfillment.

Sacrifice makes me think of gardening.
 
I am with Jam and MyDoor, thought it about "religious sacrifice" but as per the OP, I really do not understand the question. IF you identify a desired trajectory, you simply gauge your desire. How bad do you want it? If it is an all consuming desire just man up, do not stop until you get it. I mean it is not a simple thing to cast everything to the side in pursuit of single minded desire but it also is not difficult to figure out what is needed.

Ebola, sounds like you are making hard choices, but you just have to determine the cost:benefit ratio. Will achieving this desire feel better than you would feel with the things you had cast off in sarifice?
 
A healthy sense of prioritisation is essential for achieving practically anything substantial. As the old saying goes, "if you chase three rabbits, you'll catch none". This applies on many levels.
 
To the original question: no I don't believe there must be sacrifices made to lead a fulfilling life. Actually on the contrary, sacrifices inhibit oneself from pursuing happiness. Your interpretation of a sacrifice is misconstrued to begin with as most people tend to do. A sacrifice is basically compromising all that you value and love for the sake of something else. It is a pure contradiction of, and furthermore, a negation of oneself. We all have at least one long-term goal in life we wish to achieve. Whether it be becoming an astronaut, being a successful businessman, finding and marrying the love of your life we all have to start at the beginning and work our way up to the top. This doesn't involve sacrifice as the steps you take towards reaching that goal are self-driven and motivated through achieving happiness. Putting aside short-term pleasures such as drinking, drugging, meaningless & unsafe sex to take time to study hard for an exam, work at your job, or exercise is not a sacrifice as they are not a means to your desired end in leading a fulfilling life. The real sacrifice would be putting aside productive tasks like working & studying and becoming over-indulgent, living for short-term pleasures, etc. As you can probably tell by now, my personal philosophy is rather partial to objectivism:).
 
I think in anything you do there have to be sacrifices in some area of life, for example my girlfriend is pregnant with my child to be a good parent I will have to sacrifice much of my time to spend with him, I will have to earn money for him and learn how to take care of him so he grows up to be a responsible, loving, compassionate, intelligent human being (not to say that I won’t enjoy the time spent with him and that I mind providing for him but it’s still a sacrifice).

Another example is doing whatever it takes to absorb as much knowledge as I can from college and getting the best grades possible to do that I’ve had to quit substances as it was taking away from my potential and not allowing me to put 100% into everything I did at school that was a major sacrifice at the time.

If you want to earn money for something you really want it takes sacrifice of your personal time, it takes time out of your leisure. If you'd like to be able to sit in meditation for long periods of time it takes a sacrifice of sensual pleasures and letting go of your desires so you’re not constantly pulled to get up and go gratify those urges.

I am going on an 11 day silent Vipassana retreat in Texas when I visit my Mom in December that will take away much of my time with her but it will allow me to lead a life with less suffering, more happiness and more peace and one more step towards awakening…. that’s a major sacrifice because I love my Mom and the animals I grew up with as well as my sisters but I am choosing to make that sacrifice.

To accomplish things in life it seems sacrifice is inevitable.
 
Mucho amores, silly autonomist.

Living a stupid worthless life involves massive sacrifice. Living a life of dignity and meaning involves sacrifice.

My sense is that you're deliberating on a duty which may appear.

A healthy sense of prioritisation is essential for achieving practically anything substantial. As the old saying goes, "if you chase three rabbits, you'll catch none". This applies on many levels.
Click to expand...

Yes!
 
Must there be sacrifices to live a fulfilling life?

I absolutely believe this.

When you think about it, it's really just the old economic idea of opportunity cost: you can't do anything without giving up something else. The thing is, I believe opportunity cost applies just as much to the mental / spiritual realm as it does to the "real" world. For instance, the ascetic sacrifices bodily pleasure and simple joys of ownership for the other joys of communion, for the inner peace of the certainty of salvation through struggle. That this may also be pleasurable in some way is irrelevant, IMO; it's still giving up one possible slice of experience for another.
 
To make this overly theoretical. . .
Maybe Belisarius's opportunity costs idea plus Marx's conception of freedom could do...

Any person 'exists' as she is, but also including latent potentialities, formed by the current social configuration along with how that configuration forms the individual. To self-actualize is to make potentialities manifest. Manifest a potentiality, change the configuration of present potentialities.

Per this schema, pursue hedonism in the short term and close off long-term development (exercise of autonomy in history). Well duh.

not sure how to treat alienation here.
 
ebola? said:
Per this schema, pursue hedonism in the short term and close off long-term development (exercise of autonomy in history). Well duh.
Click to expand...

Explain why this follows from your argument about potentialities.

I see no logical reason why short term hedonism should close down more possibilities than long term planning. This might be the case in a given social context, but it doesn't follow from the concepts themselves.
 
It doesn't follow by necessity. It only seems to be rather commonly empirically.
By necessity, current short-term strategies, once implemented, close off some opportunities while opening others, but there often appears to be a cost of long-term options when short-term tactics hold heavy precedent.

ebola
 
In one of his more recent books, Richard Sennett argues that one of the things which is distinctive about contemporary modernity is that, with the emphasis on flexibility and increasing insecurity in the workplace, the kinds of contexts that require or allow long term planning are starting to fragment. This compels people to be constantly planning the next step, but unable to plan the step after that - an experience of constant insecurity which makes it difficult to built up a long term narrative of one's life. But, if you have the resources available to you, this kind of constant short term planning can reap rewards in terms of diversities of experiences and financial rewards as well.

So maybe short term strategies aren't such a bad idea in a social context that rewards flexibility and movement.
 
The sacrifice starts before we have even set upon an aspiration. We only have so much time in life and only so many resources. Every pursuit we put energy, time, and resources towards is automatically depriving other pursuits for good or bad.

Our life crisis points are often realizations that one of our major investments of time and energy was chosen poorly or at the expense of something that in retrospect we realize worthy of a much greater investment.

I have to say I have never substantially chosen poorly regarding my investments by going with my heart or my gut, I have chosen poorly by overthinking things. However many courses, once chosen absolutely require sticking with the plan regardless of fluctuations in mood and perspective, if there is going to be any reward for self or others. Its always hard to tell if a substantial investment is causing foolish further investment.

But back to the original point, sacrifice is inherent with our being finite beings with lives that are utterly perishable. The sacrifice is inherent in doing nothing, attempting everything, pursuing a single goal, whatever we do or don't do. Its really not that bad though I can not conceive of meaningful existence without some scarcity of resources or without some imperative that we make some choices.
 
Enki said:
The sacrifice starts before we have even set upon an aspiration. We only have so much time in life and only so many resources. Every pursuit we put energy, time, and resources towards is automatically depriving other pursuits for good or bad.

Our life crisis points are often realizations that one of our major investments of time and energy was chosen poorly or at the expense of something that in retrospect we realize worthy of a much greater investment.

I have to say I have never substantially chosen poorly regarding my investments by going with my heart or my gut, I have chosen poorly by overthinking things. However many courses, once chosen absolutely require sticking with the plan regardless of fluctuations in mood and perspective, if there is going to be any reward for self or others. Its always hard to tell if a substantial investment is causing foolish further investment.

But back to the original point, sacrifice is inherent with our being finite beings with lives that are utterly perishable. The sacrifice is inherent in doing nothing, attempting everything, pursuing a single goal, whatever we do or don't do. Its really not that bad though I can not conceive of meaningful existence without some scarcity of resources or without some imperative that we make some choices.
Click to expand...

Agreed completely. Commitment is a zero-sum game. Whenever you commit time and energy to something, that's time and energy you're NOT committing to other things, and that you'll never get back.

There's a special kind of wincing I find myself doing when I see someone who has devoted their life to a cause or pursuit which has clearly been fruitless and/or poorly suited to them, and who plays a constant complicated set of headgames with themself to avoid the realization that they wasted their lives. Ever have a burnt-out teacher who clearly was never cut out for teaching to begin with? Or one whose area of expertise has been rendered painfully obsolete?

Being in medical school has made me think a lot about this. If I become a doctor, I will mostly likely never compose music. I may very well never publish a novel, which is far more within my reach and current capabilities than music composition. My cooking talents will probably go no further than their present state. I will almost certainly never have the pleasure of learning how to work on cars. I could quite Robert Frost here, but that'd be awfully cliche. But when I remember my reasons for wanting to do medicine, these are sacrifices I am willing to make. Plus, I'm far too practical to try to raise a family as a writer.
 
^^^ That's my problem as well. Devoting so much time to a professional career when I want to do so many different things. There are sacrifices inherent to doing anything. Is just a question of which sacrifices you will make and when.
 
yes there are...

though, sacrificing some thing else, is a diversion from the sacrifices one must make in life.

~
understanding these sacrifices will bring you a greater understanding of 'self', from there and further acknowledgments; a line-of-conclusion as to the part yourself plays in the universe is drawn.
there is a lot more light to shed on this, but for now- ~:-x
 
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