Is This Your Life?

(My best in English – Traduction en Français)

“I got what the world would call a normal, boring job. I wake up in the morning, get dressed, drive myself to work, put on a name tag, take my brain out of my skull, and place it in a drawer. I spend the next nine hours smiling at people, pretending to be interested in their happiness, tolerating the company of my co-workers, staring at the clock. At the end of the day, I take my name tag off, open the drawer, reach for my brain, pop it back inside, walk to the employee parking lot, and drive myself home. And it’s really, really, really boring. It looks like I’m gonna be doing it for a long, long time.”

I had to smile when I heard Nancy saying that in an episode of Weeds. I’ve been there until I found my way out but many people would probably agree that this is a pretty accurate description of their daily life. Now tell us, if you work for a living, then why do you kill yourself working? You may ask: what do you want me to do, quit my job, sleep under a bridge, or end my life?

You know how you feel on Friday’s? Soon it’s weekend! You’ve something to look forward to, and you feel good about it. What ever it’s: going to the movie, having diner with friends, getting wasted and brainwashed by TV, But here comes Monday, no!!! You feel miserable and as soon as the day is over you’re doing your best to forget about it (a beer on the way home, unhealthy snacks, TV … you name it) and in the process you forget the most important thing and that is To LIVE! You’re not living, you’re killing some time and that’s just awful! Now imagine that you could feel like Friday everyday! How nice would that be? You’re going to work feeling excited about tonight’s activities. These activities aren’t about forgetting the day anymore but to make it count. The hours spent at the office provide for the basics (bills, foods …) and afterwards it’s time invested in yourself. When you’ve something to look for, you just feel better, it’s natural.

The idea is to plan some productive time in your daily life, to do things that really mean something to you and support a better quality of life instead of turning you into a zombie. We all have 24 hours by day, we are all equal as far as time is concerned, although we don’t use our 24 hours the same way, now do we?

While X spends her evenings and weekends watching TV, Y spends 2 hours everyday learning how to do hot stones massages. Two years later she has enough clients to have her own practice doing massages because she loves it. Did Y get lucky? No. Y just invested her time to build something she dreamed about instead of destroying that dream.

Now I took a business building example because I can relate to that, but there are plenty of things you can do in your 24 hours. Of course you gonna say ‘Yeah but I’ve to work 8 hours, I spent 2 hours in my car every day, I’ve kids to take care of, I need to clean the house…’ Let’s be honest, are you really spending 6 hours everyday cleaning/cooking/shopping…? I always liked reading books when I was in the train on my way to work before, I read Stephen Kings and Dean R Koontz, then I started reading Napoleon Hill, Dale Carnegie, Catherine Ponder, Deepak Chopra, personal development books and I’ve learned a lot, which helped me and still does building the life I want. Don’t get me wrong, I can still enjoy reading a thriller or listening to music in the car or watching a movie (this note started with me watching Weeds, who’s talking uh) but I do both and I try to do more of the things that really serve me than slow me down.

If your dream is to become a singer, start learning how; instead of watching Idols hoping someday it could be you. If you want to retire in another country, start making plans, learn the language; connect with others who’ve done it. Recently I was invited to a Toastmasters meeting: people meeting twice a month to learn how to speak in public, some for professional reasons, and some who just want to feel more comfortable speaking in front of others. A friend of mine is getting her book edited at the moment, another one is creating furniture’s made of carton, then there is this friend who works full-time but still finds the time to sing and record songs!  I could go on and on…It’s amazing to see what people can do in a day when they know what they want, who they want to become and are ready to go for it.

This is Life, Your Life, and there’s nothing to do in order to be happy, the only thing you can do is to DO LIFE, so be yourself, find your purpose, take actions serving that purpose and LIVE.

To Your ‘Beingness’

Héloïse

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