If You’re Stuck in Business & Life — It’s Not Your Fault: Here are Four Life Hacks!
Well, it sort of is your fault! Watch this video first and then read this quick post. I’m going to show you the four things you need to know to do what you love and get paid for it!
When we finally got down to something, which the individual says he really wants to do, I will say to him, you do that and forget the money, because, if you say that getting the money is the most important thing, you will spend your life completely wasting your time. You’ll be doing things you don’t like doing in order to go on living, that is to go on doing things you don’t like doing, which is stupid. Better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing than a long life spent in a miserable way.
-Alan Watts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLAXUPVC8Qo&list=UUORp0Fxa5lHFuZfLHxfeLuQ&index=30
How would you enjoy spending your life if money were no object?
It’s a great question that’s often asked in cavalier conversations amongst friends and students in college psychology classes.
What if I told you that living a life of greatness and achievement is possible for you?
What if I told you that your dreams can be lived while you’re awake and not only while you slept?
What if also told you that more likely than not, it’s us…in our own minds that prevent us from living a life fulfilled and with purpose?
What if I told you that our circle of influence, media, social conditioning play a good size role in our mediocrity, melancholy and unsatisfactory existence?
This is the state and location to where my mind has been intellectually meandering. Seeking first to understand than to be understood as well as an satiable appetite for knowledge.
You see, humans have a tremendous desire for the idea of order and certainty. Certainty in relationships — certainty in actions and in life.
Without certainty in our lives, there’s anarchy. So people would rather follow the scripts of the past handed down to them from the stewards of yesteryear than to take the risk of forging their own path. It seems as people would rather live in known hells instead of unknown heavens.
This is where I get a perplexed look, followed with “But how can you say that Ebong?”
Look around you! The people who’ve followed that path are littered about us. There are people completely wasting their time in jobs they don’t like, with people they don’t like, in careers they don’t like — all because they were once told “this is what is prescribed for you”. Like any other generational curses, we pass these stories, scripts and ideas to our children and then our children’s children….and so it continues.
How much more time will we continue to waste in worlds created by others for us?
I love asking people — what do you desire? What would you do if money were no object.
The answer no longer continue to surprise me. The answer generally start with I don’t know…a few seconds later they start sharing ideas of things they’ve thought of doing..then like clockwork, a smile starts to shine through like they are watching the dream unfold in front of their eyes. Like a pauper or beggar window shopping at Saks Fifth Avenue!
Then all of a sudden, they quickly come back to their reality…like a cold bucket of water was dumped on them.
What’s stopping them?
Excuses disguised as reasons.
Maybe Past failures!
Friends and family who’ve done nothing more than what you have but feel emboldened enough to give you advice!
Could be laziness….or even procrastination.
Lack of knowledge and experience
The funny thing is you most likely have everything you need to be succeed at the very dream you would give almost anything to live today.
A quick Bible story — 1 Samuel 17, tells the story of David as a shepherd boy and his confrontation with Goliath. The story of the underdog permeates every facet of media, including sports. David was beyond an underdog because Goliath was the large undefeated warrior of the Philistines. The Army of the Israelites couldn’t defeat him. David said he would fight Goliath and drive him away from the land. The Philistines laughed at him…David’s own brother Eliab chastised him.
King Saul gave David his armor, sword and shield for the battle. David couldn’t walk with it…and removed it.
Instead of using the sword and armor from King Saul, David picked up five smooth rocks. He also had his slingshot that he had used time and time again to kill predators that attacked his sheep.
David used his slingshot and only one rock to defeat Goliath….and the rest is history!
The morals of the story and this blog post is:
1. You have everything you need to make your dreams a success. The fancy armor and swords aren’t always necessary.
2. You have to take the first step — that step doesn’t have to be grandiose but it must be measurable and involve a forward movement. That first step always includes a decision to want more than what you currently have!
3. People, including your own family, will give you advice on things they most likely know little about. Their advice will also include slivers of their limiting beliefs, past failures and ideas they have passively read in a supermarket tabloid magazine. King Saul had never fought Goliath yet he suggested David wear the armor and use the sword. David’s brother, Eliab, told him to take a hike!
4. You really have nothing to lose in trying — the alternative is horrific. Living a life of mediocrity is far worse than taking a chance and failing because you can always get back up.
Regardless of your religious beliefs, we have a spiritual responsibility to live the best life we can while we’re here. So what are your desires and what would you do if money were no object?
Please share this, comment, like or whatever the heck we need to do to get others reading this.
I would also love to hear more about your ideas!