Love vs. Career

Apr 18, 2006 13:24

The following came from an email exchange with a young lady I have been talking with online. She is another Libra and is working abroad in the Middle East.

We both have a priority which is CAREER-which drives us into a good future....

Yes. For me the career is not important in itself. It is a means to an end. I enjoy what I do of course and I am very good at it. I enjoy the ego boost from doing well. But I am good at a lot of things and I enjoy a lot of things, most of which do not involve creating wealth. I have much too much of a philosophical bent to be a narrow-minded, business-only, career-driven person. I would not work so hard doing what I do if I did not think it was the shortest path to the other things I want, or perhaps less egotistically, that the world or its creator, wants of me. I want to make sure that my family (starting with my parents) are well taken care of. They brought me into this world and helped to make me who I am and for that I am grateful. I want the freedom to travel and the luxury of time to indulge my creative interests and broaden my world through learning. I want to win the love of a worthy woman and raise an amazing family together. I want to have the luxury of time to spend with my children so that they can benefit from all that I have to offer. Ultimately, I want to contribute to this thing which I am part of and a product of and to which I owe my loyalty: my community, my country, Western Civilization, humanity and Life, all of which are ultimately God's Gift to us.

The situation that I am up against today in terms of finding a mate is that women of the appropriate age, intelligence and background have channeled their ambition into careers and many do not share my values. I wholeheartedly endorse women's independence, education and ambition. I want it for my sister (she is a lawyer and I am proud of her) or a daughter if I am lucky enough to have one someday, and even my mother, in whom I had enough confidence to enter into business partnership. But two ambitious people contemplating marriage are bound to conflict if their ambitions are at odds. Two careers are often but not always at odds. It is like Yang and Yang.

In the end, unless you are out to make history, and even that can be ephemeral, no one cares how many promotions you received or how much money you made or how many fabulous vacations you took. We all die. I hope for a vastly extended life span (200 years?) but this is by no means assured. What do we leave behind?

Humans are wired by evolution to value social status. I see a lot of otherwise interesting young women chasing status and achievement without understanding the root of their quest. Status in itself is a fleeting and meaningless prize. Status is all about mating, security and breeding. These days, in Western countries and now probably Russia, India and China too, the ambitious single woman may attain almost any measure of status on her own that she desires. But does it satisfy? There is always greater status just out of reach. Some people are happy single. The temptation is to say, "I may find the love of my life someday, but I can't count on it so in the meantime, I'm going to learn to be happy and self-actualized on my own." The fact is, that all this careering, and social climbing and social support system-building does not secure love directly and I am coming to believe that it can in fact work at cross purposes. For example, I could easily become so emotionally and operationally independent that I have no room for real intimacy with a woman, much less room for a family in my life. In fact, a woman or family would grossly disturb my tranquil and efficient setup. I know many guys for whom this is true.

For this reason, I am coming to believe that family itself has to be the organizing concept for a man and woman coming together, not an afterthought, not a "nice-to-have" or "maybe someday." This of course results in some conclusions that are uncomfortable for some people as preparedness for family life is quite different from preparedness for success in a career. I concede that my needs are not the same as everyone's needs but I am a normal, if slightly more intelligent and self-aware kind of guy. I am not that different. I just am better able to see what is going on.

take one at a time...we can't have all in the same time.

I will say this: I have concluded that the only way I can find a mate of the desired quality (and of course provide for my other objectives) is to become independently wealthy while I am still youngish. This of course will present other problems. Ideally I would do this in partnership with a talented and worthy young lady but the kind who is willing to be truely supportive in partnership like that is vanishingly rare and I would not know how to find one anyway. So, I will make the money first and have the pre-nup ready for when I meet that "special" someone. It is sad because I know I could accomplish so much more, more quickly inside of a partnership than I can on my own. Perhaps I need to get just a little further along so that I look a little more like a "sure bet". All this calculating does not seem like Love.
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