| Goals in life are obviously personal, but I've observed they're very much influenced by the culture of the country. USA is a country where there is tremendous pressure to be successful, purely for the sake of being successful. This is mad for me, and I am strongly against this attitude, but it's factual. There were interesting comments in a post, a short time ago, comparing the cultures in USA and New Zealand. The latter would fit very much in what you would define as "be satisfied". It's mostly the typical division of A and B-type personalities. My personal opinion is that to live in a very fulfilled way a bit of both is required. One needs a bit of "success" to overcome some inevitable obstacles, and a the sime time, "satisfied" to get a true feeling of himself and what's around him. The excessively laid-down people I've met were afflicted with subtle and not immediately visible problems. As a matter of fact, one needs to carve his space in life, otherwise he's going to be very limited, if not crushed. The type of problems which affect the opposite type of attitude are more "visible" - mostly, neurotic behavior. |