Category: Enjoying The Journey

“It ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive.”

Bruce Springsteen

In a world full of hate, violence, poverty, depression, hopelessness… it can be hard, even guilt-inducing, to feel the opposite.

I know I’ve had the thought run through my mind: “How can I feel joy when there are so many awful things happening in the world?”

But you know what? …It ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive.

To be clear, this is not to say that we should bury our heads in the sand and ignore the hate, violence, poverty, depression, and hopelessness of the world.

…It’s simply to say, sometimes the absolute best thing we can do for the world is find our joy and spread that into the world as an anecdotal, proactive response rather than becoming just another passive, infected part of the ever expanding, depressing problem.

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P.s. There is a ton happening in the world that is joy-inducing, too.

I’ve been remembering lately how I used to crash on my bed at the end of a long day and scroll through my social timelines for 30 minutes to an hour each night before falling asleep.

…And how that isn’t even a thought that occurs to me anymore.

Now, it’s always either crash on my bed at the end of a long day and read or crash on my bed at the end of a long day and sleep.

And what an incredible victory worth celebrating that is.

One that, let me tell you, I haven’t really celebrated at all.

It was a challenge that I worked hard to integrate into my lifestyle that slowly, slowly, became a part of my lifestyle which, by definition, meant it was something I didn’t have to think about once it was established.

Upon reflection, I realized that I focused on other things I wanted to challenge and change about my lifestyle instead.

…And so it goes in life, eh?

If we always only think about what we’re lacking, not doing, or could be doing better… we’ll always feel bad about where we are—if we even remember to think about where we are at all.

Which isn’t to say thinking about how we can grow is bad… it’s just to remind you to balance it with some gratitude and awareness for how far you’ve come and to throw a little party for yourself every now and again.

I mean, seriously…when’s the last time you threw a little party for yourself, eh?

Today, I played pickup football with a group of 15 people, ranging in age from 11 to 55+.

As you might imagine, the ones closer to 55+ than 11 were making their fair share of comments about feeling old, rusty, out-of-shape, etc…

But, something interesting happens when you get 55+ year olds and those who think they’re close to it outside in the sun, playing an impromptu game, with a group of fun-loving people, calling plays and running routes, and doing it all how they used to as kids…

…You can almost see the years melt away, right off their bodies and faces, in real time.

Their outer shells soften. Their smiles come easier. Their physiology relaxes. The conversation lightens. Their bodies heats up and move more freely.

See, playing—in all of its forms—isn’t what makes us feel old… it’s what keeps us young.

And it isn’t until we decide that we’re “too old” to play that we truly start to age.

Most people get handed a picture of the mega-rich lifestyle and say, “Yup, that’s what I want” and spend all of their time and energy trying to paint a replica of that picture into their life without any further thought.

…Without any image at all of what their daily experience to achieve that end might look like, without any conversation around priorities, and without any authentic customizations or added personality to the picture. Just a singularly focused attempt to copy and paste another person’s end into their life, irrespective of the means.

But, what we must understand is that the means are the *real* end.

Meaning, how the moments are spent inside the lifestyle will always matter more than the mere end picture of the lifestyle.

My advice? Forget the picture. Focus on pin-pointing how you most want to spend your time. Ask yourself this fundamentally important question: “What does my ideal day look like?”—and reverse engineer from there.

Investing all of your available time and energy into an end without carefully considering the means is a mistake. Make the means your end and allow the masterpiece of your life to paint itself. Not based on some mega-rich person’s painting, but based on the brushstrokes taken uniquely by you, for you—starting today.

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Inner work prompt: What does your ideal average day / lifestyle look like?