Having our hearts desires comes at a cost

We all have wants and desires, this is a human trait and we can often spend hours day dreaming of our hopes for the future.

I have recently been reading the Magician’s Nephew by C. S. Lewis. This is one of my all time favourite books and as a child it tapped into my imagination in a very special way. In the book there is a very profound quote, which reads “All get what they want; they do not always like it.”

We can spend so much of our life wishing and daydreaming for our desires that we can often miss the very special events and people who are in our life right at this moment.

I remember as a child finding my elder sisters really annoying. I was much younger than both of them, by ten and twelve years and I was a precocious brat, with a penchant for hitting my sister’s boyfriends in the nuts. I obviously found this very funny but it wasn’t so funny for the recipient.

I know I drove my sisters mad at times as I was very hyperactive. But we also shared a close bond and one which I am happy to say has stayed into adult hood.

At the time I wished for a brother. I was a bit of a tom boy and I would often be seen wearing a pair of dungarees and trainers and not the pretty dresses, my mum so lovingly laid out on the bed for me each morning. I liked to climb trees and ride my BMX bike with the other children on our cul-de-sac.

Me at six years old

My sisters were both very girlie and liked to wear floral dresses and make up. I would offer to do their make up and by the end, they would look more like something out of the Rocky Horror Show than the tall brunette beauties they are.

The reason I am sharing this, is when my sisters grew up and left home I was still very young. My eldest sister married when I was eleven and my middle sister when I was fourteen.

I remember at the time I got home and thought brilliant, I have mum and dad to myself. Alas, I soon began to miss having my sisters around and playing the games we always shared.

Although we are still very close and I am blessed with my family in that way, I don’t get to see them as much anymore. I never will again, as naturally we have all settled down and made our own family bonds in our various ways.

I have endless examples of this growing up and indeed into adulthood. I never quite seem to learn to live in the moment. Do any of us? I look back with the gift of hindsight and I always come to the same conclusion.

I have shared how working in an office for sixteen years in the end caused my migraines to become unbearable. I think staring at the screen for eight hours or more a day was never conducive for a person who suffers chronic headaches. However, when I was younger I had age on my side.

I do look back to a charity I worked in as the happiest time in my marketing career and at the time I took it so much for granted. I remember the bursar Andrew saying to Adam and I, you are both very lucky to work here and you don’t realise how lucky you are. I used to think, what does he know, being an old person! How naive I was.

I dreamt of working in a corporate environment, mainly for being able to power dress, earn lots of money and drive a nice car. All very shallow really but at the time, I felt after seven and a half years in a charity environment earning a moderate salary, it was time for the big guns.

I got what I wanted and ended up in a corporate environment and I hated it! I missed the loving, kind environment I had previously worked in. I missed the team in communications and how we worked so well together and produced beautiful work. I missed the speaking engagements and the people we visited and the supporters who stood by the charity and everything we had to say. I missed the lot. Andrew was right and I had learnt my lesson.

I can give you so many examples of this happening as I am sure you can. We all evolve and move on and nobody wants to get stuck in any situation. However, sometimes we need to look at the life we have and enjoy the little things, as perhaps the little things are indeed the big things.