Don’t Forget to Live
Life is amazing, no matter what you do. Your attitude determines whether you enjoy life or not, and you can control your attitude. You may be in a cubicle translating a thousand lines of ancient Chinese text into English everyday, but it’s up to you whether it’s an adventure or torture.
I recently forgot this. I hungered for a more fulfilling life, as I’m sure many people do, and I let my desires rule my life. My passion pushed me to turn every idle minute into a productive goldmine; I become the Midas of productivity.
It’s always that same fisherman that reminds me that life is not somewhere yonder, but in plain sight. Life is everything around you, and it’s up to you how you decide to experience it, just don’t complain if you end up going full circle when you focus more time chasing dreams than living life.
Happiness only exists in the present
Freedom isn’t going to bring happiness. Money isn’t going to bring happiness. Happiness is here in the now, as only the present really exists. In that far off future, there are just as many new monsters to take the place of the current ones, but if you change your mindset and instead accept and learn to live in the moment, the monsters disappear altogether and are replaced with human beings that are just as confused as you are. Money and freedom will help you experience more in life, but the fundamentals never change.
I’ve always “known” that life is short and that we should chase our dreams, so I chased my dreams. I moved to China and tried out various career paths. I turned away from the grand race to riches – it just didn’t click to me. I poured myself into learning everything there is to learn about everything, and made more plans than Da Vinci in his prime.
I worked, and I work. Yet, I never stopped dreaming.
Don’t let your dreams own your life
I was shocked out of la-la-land late last year when I had my first experience with death. My grandfather passed away. Soon after then I was hit again. My best friend passed away while I was home for my grandfather’s funeral.
I miss them both, and every time I think of them I see all of the time I’ve spent away from the people I care about, and even more so how much time I’ve spent away from the people that are right next to me. Instead of connecting with the most important part of life – other people – I’ve spend most of my time conniving ways to get to locations that are anywhere but here. Goals and dreams are essential, but when they take away from life today, it just doesn’t make much sense anymore.
Instead of getting to know the people around me at work, I spend my lunches learning new website design tricks, new Japanese words, or brainstorming new post ideas. I absolutely idolize all of the productivity beasts out there, but I admire people who can be productive and connected to the world around them at the same time.
Dreams are still important; I’m not giving up on working towards financial abundance. Some things can be sacrificed to get there, like excessive spending and sleeping in on the weekends, as long as I don’t throw out life in the process.
Do something everyday that you really enjoy, and connect with others
Instead of focusing on the life that location and financial independence will afford me, I have started living as close to that life as I can now, the rest will come with time. There will never come a magical day when everything falls into place and you can start living life – that is the delusion of work-a-holics. If you focus on doing things that you hate, you will become a hateful person and may find that you’re without friends or hobbies when you finally take a second to look around someday in the future.
Life is by far more enjoyable when you can share it with others, so turn your activities into group activities as often as possible. If you enjoy programming, then share your ideas with others. Not only will you feel better about your life, but you will probably learn a lot faster that way. I enjoy learning languages, but I enjoy connecting with people more. Get off of your Anki and start connecting. Do it through forum posts if you have to, but just connect.
You don’t always have to be productive
This may ring with many readers, as if you’ve found my blog and have read it to this point, then most likely you are a person that values productivity. I value productivity and growth as well, but the productivity monster doesn’t always have to ruin things. Being too productive leads to just as many negative things as not being productive enough. I used to have 10 to do lists, and they cluttered up my mind so much that not only did I feel guilty about ever having fun, but I also never got anything done that would make a real impact on my life or others’.
Great men and women aren’t those that have the biggest achievements, but those that make the most real positive impact on others. My best friend Enrico was such a guy. His dreams were small, but boy was that funeral procession packed with people that he had made smile. Imagine a world where everyone makes everyone else smile, and you’ve just imagined a world a lot closer to harmony than we are now. It’s so simple and yet so effective.
Let go of your to do lists and focus on one thing a day
I have a calendar to help me remember things that I must do, such as due dates for projects and rent, letters that I need to write, and grocery lists. Other than that, my only to do list consists of one topic: what one thing can you do today that will make the most difference. That’s it. Identify the one thing that you can work on today that will make the biggest impact in your life, and as long as you do this everyday, your life WILL get better. Everything else can either be deleted, outsourced, or clumped up and done another day so you can focus on doing things that you enjoy.
Success doesn’t matter
Even if you never reach any of the goals you write down, it doesn’t matter as long as you enjoy the process and love what you are doing (although those who do what they love, ironically, often end up being successful in the traditional sense). If you don’t love what you are doing, why? If you love writing, you should be writing. I love blogging, so I blog. If you love building machines, you can still do that in your spare time, and then your goal might be to start a business in which you build/design/sell machines to people. The days I find the most fulfilling are the days in which I work on something I truly care about, such as this blog post, don’t think about the outcome and just pour my heart into the process.
Zenhabits has a recent post about success, which I think sums it up quite nicely.
Find enjoyment in everything
Situations don’t come with enjoyment. This isn’t World of Warcraft – you don’t just find a situation “filled with enjoyment” and go mine the enjoyment out of it. You experience things subjectively that they are filtered through your perspective. How they are filtered is up to you and your attitude and your attention. You can focus on the bad things, but you could also focus on the good.
When you can’t do what you love, at least focus on the enjoyment in what you are doing. It’s funny that the more enjoyment you see, the more you are capable of seeing. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle. The opposite is true as well – the more negativity you see, the more negativity you are capable of seeing, and that’s a destructive road to be on. You are what you think.
Let everything that doesn’t matter – slide
Whenever I get overwhelmed and tense, I think of that scene in fight club where the main character dreams that he is in a cold cave with a penguin, and it says “slide”. I let everything slide away, gather myself back into the present, and smile.
A day without a smile is a wasted day. – Charlie Chaplain
*I miss you Grandpa! I miss you Rico!
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http://beyondbounds.org Jason Sharp