Category: Feeling Fulfilled

Tonight, there was a celebration for my dad’s 70th birthday.

And right before it was time for cake, I gave a short speech highlighting seven things I learned from him.

The first six were concrete lessons—things he said or did that really helped me navigate life in a better way.

The last lesson, however, was one that only just started making sense to me tonight as I was preparing the speech.

And it’s the one line he has said time and again that he wants to have engraved on his tombstone: “I was only here for the cake.”

I’ve thought about this line on and off over the years and have pretty quickly submitted to mystery—leaving the expression as an open loop that I could curiously ponder from time to time.

And then when I imagined looking around at this celebration of my dad’s 70th revolution around the sun: eating good food, sipping champagne, and having cake… it started to make sense.

Because in many ways, cake was not something that was given to my dad throughout his life—cake was something he had to work really damn hard for.

And so as we were all sharing each other’s company and enjoying a wonderful night out, I concluded my speech by encouraging everyone to… eat the damn cake.

Because life happens fast—and if we can’t enjoy the cake every now and again, what are we working so damn hard for?

HBD, Dad. And cheers to many more lessons and beautiful years :)

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P.s. You can read my complete speech here: 7 Lessons From My Dad, Read To Him At His 70th Birthday Party.

Nobody should be more in tune with your needs / desires than you.

And while a shiny new TV or a fresh pair of sneakers might be gifts at the top of your wishlist… there are needs / desires that supersede anything that gets wrapped in a box (or shoved in a bag with some tissue paper on top).

They are specific feelings / experiences that give us a sense of meaning / fulfillment and there’s six of them I want you to consider.

The first pair are certainty vs uncertainty. Too certain and our lives become mundane and vanilla. Too uncertain and we live overly anxious and chronically worried.

The next pair to consider are significance vs connection. When we feel too unique, special, important, different… we feel like outliers and struggle to connect deeply with others. When we feel too connected with others, we can lose our individuality and significance as an individual.

The final pair to consider are growth vs contribution. Focusing too much on growth is selfish—we ignore invaluable opportunities to use what we’ve developed to help others. On the other hand, focusing too much on contribution is counterproductive—we can only give back what we have or have built.

Ideally, we want to have a balance of all of the above in our lives.

The question is, which of the above needs the most work in yours?

Because once you’ve figured out that… the next step is to create the real wishlist. The one that focuses on the things you can do to improve that specific area… and includes the real gifts that’ll make the real dent in your life…

…And not just another person’s wallet.

…It’s only awkward if you make it awkward by hesitating, holding back, and only going halfway in.

…Going all-in is the sure fire, fool-proof way to making it 100% the opposite of awkward—regardless of who you are, how you sound, what you look like, or how you move.

All-in is the secret ingredient to fulfilled experiences in life.

There is no insignificant moment.

There is no moment unworthy of your attention.

There is no space during your waking hours when the moments don’t count.

But this also doesn’t mean that every moment of your life needs to make it to your life’s highlight reel.

…When every moment is a highlight—no moment is a highlight.

All that’s required for a moment to be fulfilled is a complete and full attention.

With each moment comes an infinite array of things to soak in via our senses, things to process and act on, and directions we can choose to head.

The trick to not getting overwhelmed with this is not getting too far ahead while simultaneously not thinking too far behind.

The goal is to be whelmed with the infinity of the moment—and to deliberately subtract the “over” by being sufficiently submerged in the now.

Take it all in, y’all. Take none of it for granted. And take with you as many fulfilled moments as you can from this infinitely potential-ed day.

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P.s. ICYMI, you can read the best of what I posted to MoveMe Quotes last week, here.

“Just this morning. Over the past few weeks I’ve had a sudden onset of health things; insane poison parsnip huge blister on my foot, Basal skin cell cancer successfully removed from my temple twice, emergency root canal, two crowns on my teeth, and finally this morning (and last night’s prep for) a colonoscopy. ‘You’re falling apart,’ was the comment from my younger workmate. ‘We’ve a lot to be grateful for,’ was the comment from my mother in law. Why is that an accomplishment? At 30 you start to feel aches and pains. At 40 you realize you have to fight just to not atrophy. And a 50 you keep at it and kind of just cross your fingers that you’ve sufficiently shifted the bell curve of health fortune in your favour.”

Peter A.B. Marshall

Sheesh. What a mindset shift.

From “I’m falling apart…” to “I have so much to be grateful for” in a single comment.

Because what is “falling apart,” but a couldn’t-be-more-real-statement of what it means to be alive.

Life is always moving towards chaos; towards disorder; towards ‘falling apart’—it’s the Second Law of Thermodynamics. And while this may be wildly frustrating and messy… it’s a reminder of one thing that couldn’t be more comforting and clear: that we’re alive.

…And what a wildly humbling and beautiful gift that is.

I finished paying my car off last month.

This is my first month without a car payment in years.

And, like clockwork, I downloaded the cars app and started browsing new cars.

I don’t need a new car. I’m in an excellent position with my current car. It’s an excellent brand in excellent condition and is expected to continue running excellently for years and years to come.

…And yet, I still had that urge to search for upgrades.

To get something newer, with fewer miles, that’s all electric…

Something that might not even cost me that much if I get a good enough price for my car and a good enough deal on a new one…

…Isn’t it interesting how that works?

How excited and thrilled and fully satisfied we feel at the outset…

And then how all of a sudden, once we own that thing or have used it for a while, something changes inside…

Because it isn’t the thing that changes—not really at least.

It’s something else that changes that’s actually completely within our control…

And that thing is… our perspective.

And my current thought to myself is, if I can do some inner work to change my perspective back… to appreciate my car like it was my first month with it once again, it’ll be as though I’m taking out a whole new lease on my car—without taking on any kind of new lease at all (which is my favorite kind of lease).

…Which is how it works for taking out a whole new lease on life, too.