This question is relevant even after we supposedly “grow up”, have our respective careers and a dozen labels like “husband, wife, manager, peon, mother, single, gay, rich, eligible” etc. stuck on us. We always want to ‘become’ something. That indirectly means that whatever we are right now is inadequate. The funny thing is that, the person whom we idolize or whom we want to be like in turn wants to be like someone else!
So where does this really stop?
Is this merely a part of our social conditioning?
At least it seems so.
Though we must remind ourselves that by consistently being dissatisfied with what we are presently and wanting to be bigger, better, richer, fitter THAN now, we may be pushing our dream farther from us. These are the kind of imagined ‘qualifications’ that we expect ourselves to achieve in order to become our ‘future us’.
The world is increasingly becoming aware of spirituality by way of questioning a lot of concepts in mind. My Guru, His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar always says that the quality of our life depends on the state of our mind. For example, if one is extremely stressed/tensed(owing to job-loss, death, financial trouble etc.), then would a person be able to enjoy their favourite Pizza or that movie? And on the other hand, if the mind is totally stress-free, enjoying even a cup of tea on the roadside is charming! Which brings us to a classic question: “Does happiness then lie in the object or in within our own mind?”
Therefore the truth is that for being truly happy, we don’t need objects. We are all capable of feeling happy without these external crutches. There is no basic qualification or ‘minimum criterion’ required to feel abundant and happy.
From my own life I can tell you one thing for sure; we don’t need to become anything for receiving love and happiness. I have found true love in one of the most unexpected ways. But for that I had to “allow” myself to feel complete just the way I am. I admit it took a fair bit of work to undo all the conditioning that has been crammed in our brains from years. And to receive all this unconditional love and affection from many people, I didn’t have to achieve anything to show them how capable and worthy I was! No, that’s not the right way of going about things.
As far as careers and money matters are concerned, I shall write a separate post about it soon 🙂 I have some views that I could share- wrong or right, only time will tell!

But till then, please remember that you are perfect and beautiful and totally eligible to receive all the abundance and goodness that life has to offer. This is not your workplace where we would need to impress the boss first to get that promotion! We will be promoted in life, the moment we are ready to receive!
🙂
Take care and relaxxxxx!