Is it just my imagination or are we all busier than ever?
And seemingly, less fulfilled, more stressed, more confused and more… lost?
And having less fun.
Definitely less fun.
“I’ll have fun later. Right now, I’m busy being important and successful, get out of my way.”
Lately, it seems that everyone I talk to is ‘flat out’.
All in a big rush….. to nowhere in particular.
We’re extremely busy… doing… not a lot.
Well, nothing of significance or real consequence.
Nothing that makes us (consistently) happy or fulfilled anyway.
Sometimes we feel like we’re just another speck of humanity on the big green ball.
Our lives are time-tabled to the nano-second… but we don’t really know why.
We say we want a life of meaning and purpose…but we’re too busy to sort out exactly what that purpose might be…
“Perhaps I’ll do it this Sunday, because I have the afternoon off.”
“Yep, that’s it; I’ll do the what’s-my-life-purpose-thing this Sunday….unless of course I get busy.”
Lives have never been more chaotic, complex or frenetic… yet we’ve never felt emptier or less fulfilled.
We’re 30, 40, 50 or older and we’re still not sure what we want from life.
We don’t have clarity and purpose, we have confusion, uncertainty and fear.
I spoke to a bloke this week who has been in a mundane, thankless, un-fulfilling career (which he hates) for thirty-five years… because it didn’t dawn on him that work could be anything other than a means of paying bills. When I suggested that perhaps he could find new meaning, purpose, fulfillment, direction and excitement (yes, even in his fifties) he thought I was trying to sell him something.
I was; A LIFE.
When I suggested that he at least explore the possibility of either 1) making his current career more rewarding or 2) changing careers and creating a new reality, he thought I was nuts.
I didn’t say it would be easy or smooth or comfortable… but, is it possible to change careers, lives and realities at fifty and beyond?
Yep.
Don’t mis-represent ‘fear’ with ‘possibilities’… If we say “it’s impossible”, then we don’t have to overcome our fears… and we can stay in our un-fulfilling (but safe) little world that we’ve built ourselves.
Every day I ask people what their life-purpose is, and the majority don’t really know.
And not only don’t they know, they never even really take the time to explore it.
Sometimes they’ll mumble and bumble their way through some trite, predictable, I-wanna-save-the-planet-type answer… because that’s what they think is appropriate… and sometimes they will get cranky at me and tell me that I don’t understand their situation and I’m being unreasonable.
Okay.
Some of us get up every day and do what we did yesterday… because that’s what we do.
It’s not part of a plan or anything… it’s just a habit we are living.
We don’t have a desire to keep doing what we doing, but at the same time, we haven’t clarified what we do want to do… and we haven’t really done anything to remove ourselves from the less-than-desirable position we are in right now.
With me?
We want ‘different’ but we trap ourselves in ’same’ because of fear, laziness, apathy and ignorance.
Primarily fear.
Fear of failure.
Fear of the unknown.
Fear of losing what we’ve got (“I’d rather have mediocre… than nothing”).
Fear of embarrassment.
Fear of discomfort (emotional, psychological, physical, spiritual).
We need to take time out to get clarity.
Real clarity.
Clarity and Certainty about what we want for our life.
Clarity about our reason for being here… some of my critics tell me there is no ‘reason’; we’re just here. I choose to be here for a reason. What’s yours?
Clarity about what we want for our future. When I ask most people if they planned to be in their current situation, they say no. “I just kind of ended up here.” Crap life-strategy.
By not making a decision, you are making a decision.
Clarity about our relationships. Too many people don’t know exactly what they want, need or like in a relationship. They don’t create good relationships, they just exist and survive in the ones they have. I choose not to have friendships with negative, destructive, life-is-so-hard, energy vampires. I choose to hang out (socially) with people who challenge me, teach me and stretch me. I choose to hang out with people I respect. I choose to hang out with people who make me laugh… and cry.
Clarity about our career. We’re always hearing those stats on how we all spend 108.7% of our time working and that 264% of us are miserable in our career ….okay, I made the numbers up but you get my point. Spend time exploring, researching, asking questions, talking to people. Perhaps you need to study or re-train. Don’t panic.. you’ll survive ya big scaredy cat. I went back to University at thirty-six after an eighteen-year absence from (formal) education. And I spent three years, five days a week, hanging out with a bunch of eighteen to twenty year-olds who taught me way more than I taught them. I had zero computer skills, I had a full-time career, I had fifty-plus staff, I had people telling me I shouldn’t do it, I had massive time-management issues …..and I had the best time ever!
Clarity about our beliefs, values and principles. Aaah, now we’re getting into the juicy stuff.
Ask yourself two questions:
1) What are my beliefs, values and principles? If we are absolutely honest, most of us are a little hazy and foggy when it comes to articulating this – I’m talking about speaking with emotion and depth of feeling from the heart, not some rehearsed politically correct waffle from our head. If you really haven’t clarified what are your ‘core’ beliefs, values and principles (what represents you, what is important to you) then maybe now’s the time.
I know it’s not convenient now but do it anyway. Who knows.. you may grow to like spontaneity!
2) Am I living a life which is consistent with my beliefs, values and principles? Answer this honestly and you may discover many of your big-picture answers. Many people are miserable because they are actually living a life which is at odds with ‘who they really are.’
To gain genuine clarity requires space.
And silence
And no distractions.
And focus.
And time.
And discipline.
And guts and honesty.
Some of us are trapped in an emotional, cerebral and creative fog. We need to stick our head up through the clouds and take a look at the big wide world of possibilities.
I love Planet Possibility; it’s where I live.
I know I have many short-comings; but I choose to succeed anyway.
I know I’m not super-talented… but I’ve decided to squeeze every ounce out of what I’ve got.
I know that a life lived with purpose is not always easy… I’m prepared to be uncomfortable regularly.
I know some people will be critical of my philosophies, ideas and choices; I’m okay with that.
I know I will be wrong and make mistakes; I’ll choose to learn.
I know that if I don’t believe in me, it doesn’t matter what anyone else says.
I know not to confuse ‘what I feel with what is real‘… because my feelings are not a great indicator of what’s possible.
I know I want to live, laugh, love and learn.
Every day.
What do you really want?
And what are you prepared to do for it?
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I think a big problem a lot of people have is that they are just comfortable and they are content with that, because there’s no fear or risk involved. As you say, they get up and do each day like the last and that’s cool cos it got them through yesterday, so why wouldn’t it get them through today? I think a lot people take the short comings of their lives because they think something along the lines of, “oh well, my relationship/career/family life/financial situation sucks.. but everything else is ok and I can’t be perfect so that’s cool.” That to me, just seems a bit too easy. It’s easy to have that attitude because perfection is something unobtainable, therefore no-one actually every aims to achieve it- it’s instead just dismissed straight away. But aiming to be, amazing, or a to have an amazing career, body, financial status-whatever it is is you’re trying to achieve, is more obtainable- and therefore a more realistic, and a much harder goal. It’s a goal that the “hungry” people should be aiming for. I think it’s from times of utter desperation that a drive for change really occurs. I was so desperate for a better body, that one day I wrote down all my goals, so determined to achieve them that wild, raging bulls running towards red handkerchiefs could not have stopped me. Then 8 months down the track, I was so utterly DESPERATE for my life and a functioning body back that I set new goals- wrote them down, and am achieving them now. It’s about what we do today. It’s all about TODAY. It’s not New Year’s day, next week, or tomorrow morning. Why not this minute? Why not right now? I hate how people say, ‘I’m starting a diet’ or ‘quitting smoking tomorrow.’ It’s 9:46pm right now, why not be a non-smoker from 9:47pm today. Sometimes I just want to tell people to stop fart-assing around and actually do SOMETHING. For a massive change to occur in your life, you need a disruption to PATTERN. And yeah, you do need to get uncomfortable. Really uncomfortable. It sucks sometimes. And sometimes it feels like you’re gong backwards or downwards and you would have been much better off just going along the way you were going. But sometimes you need to go backwards/ downwards in order to come back up- and you’ve just got to be prepared to trust that you will end coming back up, exponentially surpassing the people who are still trudging along the same line.
No challenges= no growth= no progression= floating= NOT living!!
There are a lot of people living in the trance of life (ego oriented)tricky issue because some of us actually like our ego. The point here is ego is not the truth, get in touch with the authentic you aside of fears,judements,and a need to be approved of, tap into a new world
of freedom. We all know who we truly are we just need the courage to tap into it and be authentic, live with integrity especially honest with ourselves, when you are autentic you can’t doubt yourself. Ask yourself what would you really love, if it was free would you still love to have it, if the answer is yes, then what is holding you back self doubt comes under fear. Get rid of the fear in your life and live!!!