Originally Posted On: https://raptordigitalmarketing.com/2024/10/25/do-the-meaningful-thing-not-the-expedient-one/

Do the Meaningful thing, not the expedient one

Hi friend,

There are things in my life that mean more to me than anything else. My family is one of them. My goals and dreams are another. I would say above all is my belief and faith. I think it’s important to be confident with fortitude and strength, but also to feel small and weak in comparison to a supreme being.

These are things that have meaning to me personally and shore up my foundation as a person.

With that in mind, the battle I fight almost daily is choosing between what is meaningful and what is expedient.

The lure of urgency

It’s only been a hundred years or so that humanity came out of an age where daily life consisted of finding food and not dying from exposure to the elements. That’s really not that long ago.

Imagine living in a time where food was difficult to produce, retain and have enough of to not die. On top of that, there wasn’t HVAC to keep you from freezing to death or heat exhaustion.

Wild animals or humans for that matter desperate to survive would throw out any moral conflicts and take what you had to ensure their own survival.

At that time in the world there was no question about picking meaningful things in life. It was only expedience.

Nowadays our airwaves are filled with messages that tickle our ingrained neural pathways to survive. Media and advertising focus on money, sex, power and essentially all of the sins we’ve been warned to stay away from

The desire for money is strong so we can provide for ourselves and our families. From the beginning of time we’ve had to “by the sweat of our brow” make ends meet. The desire for the sweat to go away and that line to be changed to “by the vacationing and videoing of yourself” to make ends meet is very luring.

The desire for sex or acceptance by an attractive potential mate fulfills both our desire to create progeny but also status of a highly desired man or woman who publicly has their pick from the opposite sex. I think for some the idea of an affair is alluring simply so their ego can be fed knowing they are desired even though publicly they aren’t available anymore.

Power goes the same as all the others. Almost every expedient or urgent desire we have can easily be traced to an unholy, unethical or sometimes hedonistic instinct that doesn’t server our spirit.

Why meaningful things are harder to pursue 

here are a thousand reasons I want my children to become adults that stand on their own feet and make something good of themselves. None of those reasons involve me being a hitching post or constant support in their life.

Don’t get me wrong I would personally love to be needed for the rest of my life by my offspring but I know and I’m sure you do to that a child who can’t go out into the world without a comfy safety net of their parents is going to have a very hard time of it.

The best I can do is allow my child to make mistakes safely while they are a child, suffer the consequences of them and then guide them in their new choices while they get older. At some point though I have to get out of their way whether they want me to or not. This doesn’t benefit me at all. In fact it’s terrifying to put your whole life into these small humans only to plan on them having full agency and independence leaving you potentially alone, old and sad at the end of your life.

Now I know thats a bit harsh and hopefully our children will care for us and we for them through our lives, but there is truth in the statement that a boy only becomes a man when his father dies. That is when he is truly on his own.

The meaningful thing doesn’t provide personal gain

I’m choosing my words carefully.

Gain for me means an increase of some kind for you. In the case of a dependent child it’s pride, ego, bragging rights and as I’ve seen in some people condescending and nasty behavior towards others. Usually this is because they have become very comfortable in their Patriarchal or Matriarchal role and no longer fear society due to their large swatch of progeny to protect them.

Doing the meaningful thing will mean you don’t personally gain anything but wisdom, humility and grace for others.

As we age we should be more kind, quiet, careful and forgiving of others. This is why those with age most often have wisdom and quietly offer it when asked but otherwise keep quiet allowing the rest of us to wander around aimlessly until we think to ask for help.

Short steps to a better you

I work in marketing and get paid to keep attention on products and services my clients offer. My most successful campaigns usually have the simplest social proofs and asks. Public reviews unaltered by previous customers, verified payment processors, vivid imagery and videos all sustain a solid product or service. All of these small things produce purchases and revenue for my clients.

Creating meaningful interactions works very similarly. Choosing to hold your tongue over small annoyances, taking a day off from shopping on amazon or anywhere else, not scrolling any social media for the day or heaven forbid the week.

I would imagine if you look around you’ll know what doesn’t add meaning to your life.

We can’t just become who we want to be in 40 more years, but we can take very small steps towards that person until we eventually arrive.

None of us get out of this life alive. My goal is to be as close to the person that chooses meaningful actions, relationships and goals as possible before my own life ends as possible.

How about you?

Love,

Joseph