What if you currently live a very
comfortable lifestyle and you have
a lot of assets? How can
you justify running off to do what
truly makes you happy if it might
put all your current assets
at risk?
Here’s my take on this….
To abandon a comfortable lifestyle
that isn’t deeply fulfilling is to
abandon nothing. There’s
nothing of real substance there to
protect. An income, a car, a house,
or a lifestyle are not
worth protecting if the cost of such
protection is your own fulfillment
and happiness. People
who achieve some of the external
trappings of success without
internal fulfillment are only
living an illusion when they tell
themselves they have something of
value to protect. In most
cases the feeling that there ’s
something to protect is just an
excuse used to avoid facing
the real fear — that maybe all this
stuff isn’t really worth anything
compared to what’s being
lost… that maybe I should be living
more boldly and not be so
concerned about what
happens to all my stuff.
I currently have some material
stuff in my life. I have a business,
computers, a car that’s fully
paid for, and my wife and I are
closing escrow on a new home
we’ve bought. But that’s all
just stuff. It doesn’t matter. It
doesn’t have any real value. I’d
gladly give it all up and live in a
shack if that was the price I’d have
to pay to live my mission. I want
my life to have had more
value than just acquiring stuff and
living comfortably. I may die rich,
or I may die broke. But I
won ’t die with my music still in
me.
After all, why are we here? Is it to
acquire stuff, live a comfortable
lifestyle, make our families
as comfortable as possible, and
then die? Whether there ’s an
afterlife or not, one thing is
clear — we can’t take any of that
stuff with us. Our comfortable
lifestyle has no power to
endure.
And here’s the worst part. While
you’re working so hard to acquire
and protect all that stuff,
you could die unexpectedly. You
might die today. You might die
tomorrow. Maybe you won’t
die for another 70 years. Maybe
your consciousness will be
transferred into an android body
a few decades from now, but you
could still be destroyed in an
accident, even if you make a
backup of yourself. At least in the
present, you ’re still vulnerable.
Death happens to people
every day. 150,000+ people died
from the quake and tsunami in
Southeast Asia. How many
of them knew at the beginning of
December 2004 that they only had
a few weeks left to live?
And look what happened to all the
stuff those people acquired —
destroyed. Fisherman or
tourist — it doesn’t matter. We all
end up the same way.
So what is the point of a life
dedicated to the acquisition and
protection of stuff? All of your
money and possessions can be
taken away from you by forces
outside your control. No
matter how many asset protection
techniques you apply, you can
never guarantee full
security of your stuff. It ’s
perpetually vulnerable. There can
be no true security then in a life
based on the acquisition and
protection of stuff.
So what have you got to lose? What
are you truly risking if you go
after your dreams? If your
current lifestyle is unfulfilling,
then you ’re starting broke, no
matter how much money you
have. It doesn’t matter if you start
with $0 or $1 million. You have
nothing to lose either way.
Money and material assets are just
resources to use while you’re here
— you can’t take
them with you. You’re only a
temporary steward of the money
and possessions that pass
through your life. So when you
risk money, you don’t risk
anything of any enduring value.
Earn money, lose money, invest
money. But don’t make material
objects more important
than your own fulfillment and
happiness.
If you’re sitting behind a desk
working at a job you hate in order
to protect your current
lifestyle, you are protecting
nothing. Isn’t there a part of you,
deep inside, that wants to just
walk away from all of that junk
and start really living? Can you
feel how empty and hollow
your days are, how devoid of
meaning? Have you forgotten what
it ’s like to really live a day
that fulfills you deeply as a
human being? Look around your
home at all your stuff.
Recognize that in the long run, it
will all eventually end up as dust.
None of it will endure. It’s
all temporary. Your house will
eventually crumble. Your car will
wind up in a junkyard. You
cannot permanently keep any of
this stuff. Eventually you ’re going
to lose it all. Or it will lose
you.
So what kind of life is that — one
that’s dedicated to the guarding of
dust? Is that what you
want your life to be about? If you
feel there’s any purpose to your
existence as a human
being, then is this it?
Life is just too precious to waste. If
you are spending your days
working at a job that isn’t
deeply fulfilling to you, then
you’re spending your days
guarding dust. There’s no real
value
there. Stuff cannot fulfill you.
Ultimately it will only distract you
from living on purpose.
What does it mean to really live?
Deep down, you already have a
sense of the direction
where this answer lies for you.
Ultimately, it ’s a choice. You’re
totally free to live the kind of
life you want. But you’ll know
you’re really living when you
would live pretty much the same
way even if you knew you only
had 18 months left. If you would
make some big changes in
your life upon learning that you
only had 18 months to live, then
why not make those
changes now? Someone reading
this blog entry probably has less
than 18 months to live.
Maybe it ’s you.
Live for what is real to you. Live
for what truly matters to you.
What matters to me — what is real
to me — is inspiring and helping
people. Directly or
indirectly, whenever I’m able to
help someone solve a really tough
problem or to motivate
someone to finally push past a big
obstacle, that is something I find
tremendously fulfilling.
And the fulfillment I get from
doing this is so great that it
trumps all the external stuff. It
doesn ’t matter how much money I
make. It doesn’t matter if people
reject my ideas or poke
fun at what I enjoy doing. This
blog entry may be read by over
1000 people, but it may be
such that the ideas within are only
able to help one person in a very
small way. The other
999 may conclude I ’m nuts and
unsubscribe. And that’s fine. It’s
that one person I’m writing
for.
But at the same time, starting
from the point of spending each
day doing something that
fulfills me, I ’m building this work
into a business that can support
and sustain me and my
family. This will ultimately
include paid speaking
engagements, and information
products
like books and audio programs. So I
’m starting with doing what I love
and building it into a
source of income. The more money
the business generates, the more
people I’m ultimately
able to reach. So making money is
aligned with my own personal
fulfillment — they aren’t at
odds with each other. If you do
what you love, then you can surely
find a way to turn it into an
income stream — then the more
money you make, the more you
expand your capacity to
continue doing what you love in
bigger and bigger ways.
Taking what you love to do and
turning it into a source of income,
either as an employee or
an entrepreneur, seems hard to
resist. If you ’re going to spend so
much time working to
make money, why not make that
money in the pursuit of your
dreams instead of in the
protection of dust?
What does your current to do list
look like? Is it filled with tasks
that aren’t even real to you?
Are you typing stuff that doesn’t
matter, going to soulless meetings,
shuffling papers and
filling out forms to appease
computers, while sitting in a
Dilbert-style cage all day? Why do
you continue to choose that life
each day? You ’re always free to
stop at any time. You make
the rules.
What percentage of the tasks on
your to do list will fulfill you
deeply to do them? What kind of
to do list would be real to you?
What items might it contain?
Compose a new piece of
music.What if you currently live a very
comfortable lifestyle and you have
a lot of assets? How can
you justify running off to do what
truly makes you happy if it might
put all your current assets
at risk?
Here’s my take on this….
To abandon a comfortable lifestyle
that isn’t deeply fulfilling is to
abandon nothing. There’s
nothing of real substance there to
protect. An income, a car, a house,
or a lifestyle are not
worth protecting if the cost of such
protection is your own fulfillment
and happiness. People
who achieve some of the external
trappings of success without
internal fulfillment are only
living an illusion when they tell
themselves they have something of
value to protect. In most
cases the feeling that there ’s
something to protect is just an
excuse used to avoid facing
the real fear — that maybe all this
stuff isn’t really worth anything
compared to what’s being
lost… that maybe I should be living
more boldly and not be so
concerned about what
happens to all my stuff.
I currently have some material
stuff in my life. I have a business,
computers, a car that’s fully
paid for, and my wife and I are
closing escrow on a new home
we’ve bought. But that’s all
just stuff. It doesn’t matter. It
doesn’t have any real value. I’d
gladly give it all up and live in a
shack if that was the price I’d have
to pay to live my mission. I want
my life to have had more
value than just acquiring stuff and
living comfortably. I may die rich,
or I may die broke. But I
won ’t die with my music still in
me.
After all, why are we here? Is it to
acquire stuff, live a comfortable
lifestyle, make our families
as comfortable as possible, and
then die? Whether there ’s an
afterlife or not, one thing is
clear — we can’t take any of that
stuff with us. Our comfortable
lifestyle has no power to
endure.
And here’s the worst part. While
you’re working so hard to acquire
and protect all that stuff,
you could die unexpectedly. You
might die today. You might die
tomorrow. Maybe you won’t
die for another 70 years. Maybe
your consciousness will be
transferred into an android body
a few decades from now, but you
could still be destroyed in an
accident, even if you make a
backup of yourself. At least in the
present, you ’re still vulnerable.
Death happens to people
every day. 150,000+ people died
from the quake and tsunami in
Southeast Asia. How many
of them knew at the beginning of
December 2004 that they only had
a few weeks left to live?
And look what happened to all the
stuff those people acquired —
destroyed. Fisherman or
tourist — it doesn’t matter. We all
end up the same way.
So what is the point of a life
dedicated to the acquisition and
protection of stuff? All of your
money and possessions can be
taken away from you by forces
outside your control. No
matter how many asset protection
techniques you apply, you can
never guarantee full
security of your stuff. It ’s
perpetually vulnerable. There can
be no true security then in a life
based on the acquisition and
protection of stuff.
So what have you got to lose? What
are you truly risking if you go
after your dreams? If your
current lifestyle is unfulfilling,
then you ’re starting broke, no
matter how much money you
have. It doesn’t matter if you start
with $0 or $1 million. You have
nothing to lose either way.
Money and material assets are just
resources to use while you’re here
— you can’t take
them with you. You’re only a
temporary steward of the money
and possessions that pass
through your life. So when you
risk money, you don’t risk
anything of any enduring value.
Earn money, lose money, invest
money. But don’t make material
objects more important
than your own fulfillment and
happiness.
If you’re sitting behind a desk
working at a job you hate in order
to protect your current
lifestyle, you are protecting
nothing. Isn’t there a part of you,
deep inside, that wants to just
walk away from all of that junk
and start really living? Can you
feel how empty and hollow
your days are, how devoid of
meaning? Have you forgotten what
it ’s like to really live a day
that fulfills you deeply as a
human being? Look around your
home at all your stuff.
Recognize that in the long run, it
will all eventually end up as dust.
None of it will endure. It’s
all temporary. Your house will
eventually crumble. Your car will
wind up in a junkyard. You
cannot permanently keep any of
this stuff. Eventually you ’re going
to lose it all. Or it will lose
you.
So what kind of life is that — one
that’s dedicated to the guarding of
dust? Is that what you
want your life to be about? If you
feel there’s any purpose to your
existence as a human
being, then is this it?
Life is just too precious to waste. If
you are spending your days
working at a job that isn’t
deeply fulfilling to you, then
you’re spending your days
guarding dust. There’s no real
value
there. Stuff cannot fulfill you.
Ultimately it will only distract you
from living on purpose.
What does it mean to really live?
Deep down, you already have a
sense of the direction
where this answer lies for you.
Ultimately, it ’s a choice. You’re
totally free to live the kind of
life you want. But you’ll know
you’re really living when you
would live pretty much the same
way even if you knew you only
had 18 months left. If you would
make some big changes in
your life upon learning that you
only had 18 months to live, then
why not make those
changes now? Someone reading
this blog entry probably has less
than 18 months to live.
Maybe it ’s you.
Live for what is real to you. Live
for what truly matters to you.
What matters to me — what is real
to me — is inspiring and helping
people. Directly or
indirectly, whenever I’m able to
help someone solve a really tough
problem or to motivate
someone to finally push past a big
obstacle, that is something I find
tremendously fulfilling.
And the fulfillment I get from
doing this is so great that it
trumps all the external stuff. It
doesn ’t matter how much money I
make. It doesn’t matter if people
reject my ideas or poke
fun at what I enjoy doing. This
blog entry may be read by over
1000 people, but it may be
such that the ideas within are only
able to help one person in a very
small way. The other
999 may conclude I ’m nuts and
unsubscribe. And that’s fine. It’s
that one person I’m writing
for.
But at the same time, starting
from the point of spending each
day doing something that
fulfills me, I ’m building this work
into a business that can support
and sustain me and my
family. This will ultimately
include paid speaking
engagements, and information
products
like books and audio programs. So I
’m starting with doing what I love
and building it into a
source of income. The more money
the business generates, the more
people I’m ultimately
able to reach. So making money is
aligned with my own personal
fulfillment — they aren’t at
odds with each other. If you do
what you love, then you can surely
find a way to turn it into an
income stream — then the more
money you make, the more you
expand your capacity to
continue doing what you love in
bigger and bigger ways.
Taking what you love to do and
turning it into a source of income,
either as an employee or
an entrepreneur, seems hard to
resist. If you ’re going to spend so
much time working to
make money, why not make that
money in the pursuit of your
dreams instead of in the
protection of dust?
What does your current to do list
look like? Is it filled with tasks
that aren’t even real to you?
Are you typing stuff that doesn’t
matter, going to soulless meetings,
shuffling papers and
filling out forms to appease
computers, while sitting in a
Dilbert-style cage all day? Why do
you continue to choose that life
each day? You ’re always free to
stop at any time. You make
the rules.
What percentage of the tasks on
your to do list will fulfill you
deeply to do them? What kind of
to do list would be real to you?
What items might it contain?
Compose a new piece of
music.
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