While growing up children learn wise ideas from others. And when they adhere to these ideas it becomes part of their life philosophy. Sometimes these ideas also morph into a description of how their life unfolds. The idea then has become an element of their objectives and of how they’ll use it to assess a situation. What happens is that the idea was taken out of context, thus transforming its meaning.

Take the idea that something will always be missing. Or that one cannot have it all.

It’s undeniable that for most of us, it regularly happens that what is received and what one asked for rarely matches. Something will be different, unexpected, and maybe not entirely to our liking.

For some, that is where the challenge appears. Instead of liking what they received or have, they focus on the missing element.

For others, that is where the opportunity appears. They transform their focus on what is missing into an ambition.

The individuals found a way to integrate their learning and perfected it. It’s the approach they found to be the better one for themselves. But it doesn’t make one better than the other.

And yet, one may speculate that without the ability to be happy with what they received, the pursuit of the missing element makes it difficult to experience satisfaction. They are too used to seeing that something is missing and thus experience their situation through that lens.