A tool for your tool box…
How would life feel?
How would it feel to turn hinderances into hurdles?
To turn tasks into talents?
Sure, this can easily and rather quickly be discarded with statements such as “that’s just life” or maybe “growing up means accepting and dealing with it” and Im not here to argue, if that creates a life you love to engage with or one that has you smiling without noticing, maybe walking around feeling youthful, joyful and powerful, maybe a life that has all three of these characteristics if you wish! Then so be it and power to you. All I have to suggest is a way to shift your paradigm from time to time, a perspective rearranging tool for your personal toolbox when the other ones don’t seem to fit the job.
Its simple and yet profoundly practical for every aspect of your life, but it also is contingent on one axiom that may need some dusting off… that axiom is, if whether or not we believe that whatever we’re choosing to spend our time doing is worth our full and complete engagement and attention.
At some point I believe we all begin to understand that by going through certain motions unconsciously, they paradoxically become much less painful…. Ask the kid who puts in headphones with homework or the “average” man listening to an inspirational entrepreneur’s podcast while he works his corporate desk job or maybe the wife who dreams of connection and intimacy while allowing her husband to get his weekly orgasm. All different examples of people fulfilling what they feel to be their obligation, not even to say they don’t enjoy it, but it’s something in which they have to do. If they were given the ultimate choice in the matter, maybe they’d choose other circumstances for themselves, but the current circumstances suffice and if they put the axiom that consumed their character as children aside, maybe on a pedestal to collect dust or hidden in a closet, it creates a life they’re happy enough to live.
I think we could write a list together of examples of this that would create quite a pile at our feet, if you don’t enjoy my examples above or they don’t inspire you in any way, please take a second and brainstorm. Remembering, this isn’t an inherently “negative” state of being, people can engage in beautiful parts of their lives unconsciously simply out of habit. Regardless, leading us to back to our foundational axiom upon which creates a reality where the speculative tool I I wish to share can rearrange our perspective in ways that paints the “now” as something to be fully here with.
Do you remember what it feels like to be fascinated? Maybe the last time you went to a park and watched the leaves, or the first time you saw a grasshopper as a child, or maybe people watching as you a had a coffee in cafe. Whenever this was, I think we can all agree that the amount of time in which you spend “fascinated”, simply and unapologetically engrossed in this or that has reduced since you were younger? If not then send me an email, I’d love to chat! But for the rest of us, I think we can “maturely” say this is only natural, as you’ve seen more of the world, maybe things just don’t surprise you anymore, or maybe you know what your passions are and you only become engrossed when engaged with that particular thing, or so often do we not hear “who has time for that? Im too busy and engaged with my day to day to have time obsessing over silly things”
I think we can simplify our axiom with this idea, Fascination. When we believe, that no matter what it is, if we are choosing to spend our time, our precious time, there in that moment, that moment deserves our complete attention, complete presence, our complete respect, for us to become completely fascinated with it. If we can agree upon this, then it will be the last obligation you will ever have to have in your life.
Opportunities over Obligations
Instead of seeing things in your life as what you “have” to do, let’s reframe it into what “we get to do”. When we forget to be grateful for what we do have, what we do get to do, it becomes easy to slip into this more unconscious and procedural life. Let’s take getting your kids up in the morning for school, this is something many parents will do hundreds, if not thousands of times. And yet I think it’s easy for many of them to begin viewing this as “part of the day” but let’s not forget the magic in this? Not to mention the privilege of the idea of waking them up in their home for school. There is so much to be grateful for in this “daily routine” yet we can easily overlook this and just go through the motions. You don’t have to get your kids up for school, you get to. And again I can already imagine people thinking, “oh well it’s not that easy, my kids hate waking up for school, they hate having breakfast with me” and all sorts of things like this. Again, to me, you’re simply presented with an opportunity to love and serve potentially the most important people in your life, is loving someone with the expectation of them loving you back really love? This simple reframe can change your life I guarantee you.
You don’t have to brush your teeth, you get to take care of yourself.
You don’t have to graduate college, you get to become educated in something that inspires you and will illuminate your life with passion and purpose for years to come.
You don’t have love your spouse, you get the chance to be fully seen and felt by another who you cherish, admire and respect.
You don’t have to go exercise, you get to cultivate a body and mind that is conducive to you expressing yourself at your highest potential.
You don’t have to go to family Christmas, you get to, at the very least, be with others and at the pinnacle, to be able to see, hear and feel unconditional love.
You don’t have to “stand up for the cause” , you get to illuminate a perspective to others that you hold deeply valuable and important.
It’s easy to trick ourselves into lives of minimal fulfillment by justifying what we do as duty. With this tool we don’t necessarily have to change what we do, simply how and why we do the things we do. That is what makes this tool so valuable, you can be looking at the same person in the mirror but for the first time since you can remember, the person looking back has eyes full of fascination.
Are you living a life that inspires you? When we start to become grateful for life, our life and all of its moments, our life becomes something we are constantly fascinated by, situations that were once mundane, become moving. When we come back to life, life comes back to us… we don’t have to view life as a chore, life can be a gift. Maybe this is a bit far out for you, if so I’d advise just keeping the tool in your box, and maybe, just maybe, if you find yourself in a situation where you realize maybe you’d rather not be there, maybe you notice your self day dreaming about being somewhere else, doing something different… remember the tool I shared with you today.
We all have the opportunity to create lives as fascinating as our dreams, the first step is believing.
Stay in light, stay in love
Jay Bierschenk