Here's an interesting thought: what's more important to ask, "What do I want for breakfast?" or "what career do I want to have?"
Most people, I'd guess, would answer that the question about the career is more important.
I had the momentary obsession that it was more important, or at least as important, to ask "what do I want for breakfast?"
(I don't think this is a new thought, I think that I may be plagiarizing Winnie-the-Pooh liberally).
One's career is obviously important. What work do I want to do with my life, how will I make a living, and what will I do to contribute to society? But breakfast? Well, breakfast is nutritious... hopefully one enjoys breakfast. It's the start of the morning and it could set the tone for the rest of the day. "What to have for breakfast" could also be a metaphor (uh-oh!) for the smallish, but potentially enjoyable, details of life.
Like a career, breakfast is (pretty much) necessary, and there is a great variety of choices. Unlike a career, which is a big decision, and one does not get too many chances to change it, there are many other small choices similar to breakfast. There's lunch and dinner for instance. There's the decision about whether or not to have a cigarette, whether or not to smile at someone we pass in the hallway, whether to yell at a child or to talk to him kindly. Many small choices... but I think one could argue that the sum of all these small choices is likely to be much greater than the choice of what to do for one's career.
There is a philosophy that is very good and useful in a certain context. It says "Don't sweat the small stuff". This is very good advice, when the small stuff in question is the little inconveniences that happy every day. But the opposite is also true, in a slightly different context. The small stuff is the roses that we're supposed to stop and smell.
When I was younger, I had jobs, but nothing even approaching a career. I thought about the long term future, but the immediate future and the present had most of my attention. Now I find that my attention constantly drifts forward in time - way past breakfast. Frequently I just eat what is available, giving no thought whatsoever to whether I even like it or not. It has just occurred to me that this is not the way to live a full life. Certainly the big events of life are very important, and the big choices as well - that's obvious. And we impress that on our children from a pretty early age that they need to really think about the big choices. But I think we inadvertently begin to diminish the importance of the small decisions. We yell at our children because we're worried about work - the yelling becomes a reflex and we are not even making a decision to do it. We forget to tell our spouse that we love them. We eat breakfast without tasting it.
So, tomorrow I may have the same old frosted mini-wheats, but I'm going to do it consciously. I'm going to taste them. Perhaps that I will wish that I had a large piece of Hobee's blueberry coffeecake instead, but I will think about what I would like to have for breakfast. And what I want to say to my wife and son, and I will listen to what they say at least a little better than I did today. And I will try not to be shy about smiling at someone in the hallway. I'm almost 34, and those small decisions are adding up.
