Have you ever been in a situation in life where, generally speaking, you’ve accomplished everything you’ve set out to accomplish? Or at the very least, you’ve checked off everything currently on your “five year plan” or “New Years Resolutions?”
Recently I’ve found myself in such a situation. As I talked about in my most recent podcast “When Goodness Follows You,” I’ve suddenly experienced a tremendous amount of blessings in my life– and all at once. I started a new job, I bought a new home, and I’ve had a number of other blessings suddenly materialize in my life.
Such has left me in a situation of, “But what now?” What’s the next chapter of my life look like? What things do I now need to go and accomplish now that I’ve already accomplished all of the things I set out at the start of the year to accomplish?
The infamous villain, Hans Gruber, once said in the movie, “Die Hard” that “Alexander wept for there were no more worlds to conquer.” (Which is actually a misquote and misunderstanding of what actually happened regarding Alexander the Great, who is said to have wept because he realized there were infinite worlds to conquer, and he had failed to even conquer the one.)
Regardless of what actually caused Alexander the Great to cry, Hans Gruber’s quote raises the question of a certain existential angst that you might experience when you’ve done everything there is to do. After all, if you’ve conquered the entire world, there isn’t all that much left to do. So what does one do, especially if one really enjoys conquest?
In this podcast, I talk about this possible crisis, and how we should handle it.
