The 4th Secret to Living the Good Life

Time is Life ~ Spend it Wisely

Dear Friend,

“Focus your days around what you love, not around earning money.  Money is only a means to an end.  Living is the end you seek.”

I believe that the amount of time that we spend doing something should roughly equal the priority that something has in our lives.  In fact, one of my personal goals is to achieve this balance everyday.

Of course, things have a way of intruding and forcing their way into your neatly-planned schedule.  In fact, the experience of living seems to be a continuous effort by the forces around us to turn us adrift.

Are you a human or a rock?

I believe that the difference between a conscious being and a simple rock is that we, as conscious beings, are meant to defy these forces around us when they get in the way of our free will.  Rocks simply react in consistent and predictable ways.

It is our ability to set a course through life and to weather the storms that try to defer that course that define us as human beings.  So to merely drift through life is to fail to be fully human.  To fail to find the star that you must steer by, or to steer by someone else’s star because they claim that it’s better somehow, is to fail to live.

I believe that we, as humans, are still learning what it means to be conscious beings.  And the process of knowing ourselves and learning how to ply our way through the universe, and particularly through a crowded world full of unconscious humans, is what is meant for us.  It is a necessary stage in the path to full human consciousness.  It is what we must master if we are to be more than mere rocks.

Part of setting our own course is the process of identifying what really matters to us.

I have said before in this blog how much of my life that I spent breaking every rule that I write here now.  Perhaps this is why I believe these things so passionately.  I have lived on the other side.  It sucks.

Don’t even start to make the mistakes that I did.  And if you already have, let me be your example that you can escape your life, no matter how deep that you think you are committed to it.

One of the biggest changes in my life today is the amount of time that I spend doing what matters most to me.  Normally, parents teach their kids to put off pleasure in favor of hard work.  I believed that message.  I preached that message.  And I learned the hard way that life without pleasure is life not worth living.

I won’t go back to that way of life.  Not ever.  I can’t.  Now, that doesn’t mean that every day of my life now is just all pansies and roses.  But the stress is gone.  The underlying angst that comes from doing things that you hate because you “have to” isn’t there.

In the old days, every day that went by felt, deep down, as if several more days of my future died with it.  I felt like I was dying inside.  I was dying inside.

Life isn’t about dying.  It is about living fully.  Being conscious.  Knowing yourself.  It is about making what matters to you the highest priority in your life.

I’m not just talking about lip service, here.  If your kids come at the top of your priority list, then spending time with them should be what you do most.  Do you do that now?  Saying that your kids are your top priority while you spend your life in business meetings is disingenuous.

If you really prefer business meetings to spending time with your kids, then stop lying to yourself.  I’m not going to judge.  It’s your life.  It’s your business and no one else’s.  You can lie to the world about your priorities.  But stop lying to yourself.  Otherwise, you are doing what matters most to you but you aren’t letting yourself enjoy it out of misplaced guilt.

The 4th Secret is about honestly prioritizing the way that you spend each day in a way that is fully in sync with what really matters to you.

Consider how you spend your days.  Embrace that which you love.  Begin the process of ending whatever it is that you are doing that takes away from doing what you love.

You have made commitments in the past.  Prepare to break them.  And, if necessary, to pay the consequences.

If you want to be happy, will will be faced with undoing commitments that you made when you weren’t carefully protecting your time.  Don’t let fear of hurt or dishonor stop you.

You must be honest with those around you.  Do they really want to hold you to these old commitments if doing so will prevent you from achieving your own true happiness?

Breaking some of these commitments will come with a cost.  Pay it and move on.  Apologize and move on. No matter how high the cost, it can never be high enough to justify you deferring your dreams.

Do what you have to do.  And then begin living the life that you are meant to live.

Trust me, all of this effort will be worth it.

Until later,

Hugh