Gain or loss: which one hurts?

So here we are in November 2006; it's not long now until the end of another year. I was having another dive into my favourite copy of the Tao Te Ching and I read part of Ch.44 which struck a chord with me:

Gain or loss: which one hurts?

In November 2005, I left a job that was causing me high levels of stress to the point that it was making me ill both physically and mentally. And yet in September 2004, I was highly delighted to gain this job; it was something that I had worked towards for a number of years, a job which I had longed to do, something that I felt was just right for me. Once I was doing the job, I began to have misgivings but put these down to nerves at doing something completely new and that everything would settle down in time. In the end, due partly to a complete lack of adequate support, I felt that I had no option but to leave the 'job of my dreams'.

I had gained something and it hurt - a lot. I lost something and that hurt too, but less so after the initial 'lightening strike' feeling. What did I lose? An illusion, a much longed-for dream had to be given up, abandoned, and that's not an easy thing, I am here to tell you. Sometimes we can work very hard for goals, believing them to be the ones that we want/need only to find that things don't work out the way we expected them to, and perhaps they never would have or perhaps, they might have if circumstances/people had been different.

I have talked before about the pursuit of happiness; perhaps happiness will come to us if we don't chase it so hard. Perhaps it's the same with dreams; perhaps we need to be aware of what we are really looking for before we go and look for it.