Is it your job?

Your house?

The kind of car you drive, or your clothes?

You physical fitness? Your weekend hobbies?

Theoretically, it doesn’t seem like much. But placing too much stake in any of these transient things can be devastating in the long run.

COVID has shown how quickly most of what we take for granted can vanish. Our jobs, health, house, and more can disappear in an instant.

Or, on a less drastic note, it certainly will disappear if we look at a long enough timeline. Things change. Nobody does exactly what they want, or at least what they might think they want, at every moment. We go through ups and downs along the way.

Our ability to deal with these ups and downs is nearly directly tied to how much of ourselves we place in the things and constructs around us.

Losing a job or missing a fun summer activity is a minor blip in the big picture. We struggle for a bit, change our “usual” and move on.

The challenge, however, comes when we place our self worth in these things that we lose. When we can’t stand the idea of being seen in a lesser car than what we’re used to driving, or when we cower in fear about the idea of telling our neighbors that we lost our job.

It would be swell if we could live exactly how we want at all times, but that won’t happen. So, when things are going relatively well, it’s a good time to think about how much of our surroundings we could give up without changing who we are as a person.

-Brandon