Category: Feeling Fulfilled

Driving home from an amusement park this past weekend, I looked at one of my friends and replayed a moment for him as the Spotify queue loaded up the next song.

“I meant what I said when we were on our way up to the top of that last roller coaster…”

“…Use that moment to never forget the weekend.”

And he looked at me, turned down the volume of the song that started playing and said, “I appreciate that man. But you know what? I don’t think that’s gonna be the moment that triggers the memory of the weekend for me…”

He said, “There’s this quote I love from the movie Up that goes, ‘That might sound boring, but I think the boring stuff is the stuff I remember the most.’ And I think the same is true for me, too…”

“…What I’m going to remember are the ways we passed time while waiting for hours in lines for rides, the way we spent our time the night before we even got to the amusement park, the inside jokes that spontaneously arrived throughout.”

“…What I’m going to remember is The Propaganda Of Big Goop.”

And we both laughed wildly.

And the fact that you don’t know why is exactly what I think he’s talking about.

…It all happened in a boring moment outside of a bathroom when we were stopped for a food break on our roadtrip. And not when we were at one of the peak adrenaline moments of the whole weekend trip.

…And I suspect the same might be true for you, too, if you look a little closer at the cherished moments of your life.

Run through a normal day in your head.

• Making food for others
• Doing chores around the house
• Doing the work you do
• Creating and sharing content online
• Expressing artistic endeavors
• Having conversations
• Planning events
• Showing up to people’s events
• Checking in on friends/family
• Leaving tips
• Helping dependents and those in need

Does your mind see, “obligation, obligation, obligation…etc.”

…Or does it see, “Chance to gift, chance to gift, chance to gift, etc.”

…Suddenly, you might start to realize why you’re feeling so run down and worn out or overwhelmed with gratitude and joy on the daily.

Who’s more rich:

• The person rich in friends or the person rich in money?
• The person rich in travel or the person rich in money?
• The person rich in joy or the person rich in money?
• The person rich in wisdom or the person rich in money?
• The person rich in love or the person rich in money?

Worth meditating on in your life: If becoming rich in money is at the expense of any of the former ideas—I’m not so sure the end result is more rich.

Paint a picture for me of what your ideal day looks like. I’ll start:

• Wake up slowly; no alarm.
• Scorching hot shower.
• Foam rolling/ deep stretching/ mobility/ (p)rehab work.
• Disguised exercise. Be it martial arts, sports, hike, dancing, or lifting.
• Sauna/Steam room/rinse off finish.
• Work that excites me.
• Afternoon nap.
• Scorching hot cup of black coffee.
• Reflective/Creative; Writing/Reading; Inner Work time.
• Meditation.
• Work that excites me.
• Evening spent slowly unwinding, chatting, dining, playing, and connecting with the ones I love.

You know what this now becomes?

…Your definition of success.

Not “getting six or seven figures into my bank account.”

No. Your ideal day becomes the definition that you can begin reverse engineering your way to.

It’s clear. It’s aligned. It’s priority focused.

…It’s what your life is composed of: days fulfilled or not.

And if you can successfully fill your days… how could you not have successfully filled your life?

Osho says that misery is nothing but distance from truth.

Think about the proximity of truth in some of the best/worst relationships you’ve ever known. The relationships riddled with lies were probably the most miserable. And I’m not even just talking about lies with your partner… I’m including lies you’ve told yourself… about who you are, what you want, and how you’re going to show up in the relationship to make it work. And I’m sure the inverse is true as well. Lies move pain (misery) into the future—truth moves pain (misery) into the past.

Think, too, about some of the best/worst job or career paths you’ve ever pursued. The work that was most aligned with the truth of your personality/spirit, was the work you undoubtedly most enjoyed. And the work that felt like a direct contradiction I’m sure caused the most misery. But, again, we can’t be true to our work until we’re true to ourselves. We need to do personality tests, build skills, join clubs, follow our innate curiosities, experiment/side-hustle, and, of course, do inner work to reveal our truth which we can then align with work.

And even just think about some of the best/worse moments in your life… when you were crossing items off your bucket list—doing things that truly fulfill you. Or when you were forced to do something you really didn’t want to do or hated every second of… that was so against your inner truth…

Once you understand this, moving towards truth can become a mantra of sorts that’ll guide you in just about every dimension in life. Once you uncover, of course, what your truth is.

In other words, can we experience something extraordinary without any active involvement or effort on our end?

I’m not sure we can.

In fact, when I list some of the most extraordinary moments I’ve experienced in my life, they’re all moments I was very much involved with facilitating. Things like:

• Skydiving (researched, booked, paid for, attended, trained, got on the plane, stepped out, etc.)
• Travel/Cultural Experiences (researched, booked, paid for, packed for, traveled to, noticed, absorbed, etc.)
• Milestone Moments (graduations, big purchases, martial arts ranks obtained, etc.—all worked incredibly hard for)
• Deep Connection Moments (heart-to-heart conversations, intimate energy exchanges, the depth that comes from sharing the same long-term path, etc.)
• Flow State Moments (when immersed in an aligned game/activity, when dancing/celebrating without self-consciousness, when training/being challenged appropriately, etc).
• Indomitable Spirit Moments (when being pushed to my limits physically, mentally, or emotionally).

I’m not sure we can just passively sit around, wait, and get hit by an extraordinary life moment that’ll make it onto our life’s highlight reel.

Sure there’s luck, serendipity, and happenstance. But not without our active involvement in some way, shape, or form. In fact, my experience has been that the more I do of the latter, the more I tend to get of the former.

Which is worth reflecting on… does this ring true for you? What are some of your life’s most extraordinary moments? What moments are you actively building to be soon experienced in the next week? Month? Year? Decade? What extraordinary life moments are on your bucket list that you can start actively building for today?

We humans are not just biological scripting reacting to nature’s events.

We’re thinkers, planners, dreamers, organizers, collaborators…

…But most of all, we’re builders.

And if we want purpose and meaning in our lives… we have to build it—not wait for nature to give it.

Some examples of what has and/or still fills me with a sense of purpose and meaning are the following:

• Family/Friends/Lovers: I don’t feel a sense of meaning or purpose towards strangers… only towards the people whom I’ve built strong connections with. My purpose is to nurture, provide, care for, support, console, and so on… and the more I invest (and build) into them, the more meaning and reward I feel. Especially as it’s reciprocated and something great gets mutually grown and shared.

• Vocation/Career/Work: It started with an incredibly strong desire to be a great martial artist—that was my purpose. I was completely captivated by it. I was good at it. And I was lucky to have found a school that knew how to facilitate it. The more I invested, the more meaning I felt. And once I got to the point where I was leading, teaching, and coaching—and helping others build themselves—my purpose and meaning grew in proportion to the lives I touched.

• Reading/Writing/Creating: Early stage reading was shallow for me. I cared more about finishing than comprehending. And not much meaning/purpose resulted. But once I decided to build a quote website? And write daily insights? And build accompanying websites, content, guides, and more? Uh, yeah… purpose and meaning city.

Never forget: purpose and meaning isn’t something life gives to you. It’s something you build from the life you’ve been gifted.