One thing most of us have fundamentally wrong about life is thinking we have to use it to get what we want.
Meanwhile, few people are asking how to better experience it on a moment to moment basis.
If you think about it, most of the dialogue today around self-improvement revolves around how to get what you want. Want more money? Here's how. Want a bigger house? Here's how. Want to attract your soulmate? Here's how. Want your dream job? Here's how. Want six pack abs? Here's how.
Putting aside the fact that few people even do the things necessary to get what they want, a bigger question is - why do you want those things in the first place?
People are chasing things. Things, things, things. We're always after the next thing. And when we're not, we feel guilty.
If you think about the nature of all those things - they point to the quest for something external, not just in the goal, but also the strategy. They give you tactics on how to manipulate your external reality to get what you want.
In other words, how can I use life to get what I want. This approach seems so obvious, so normal, that very few people question if it's the most peaceful, enjoyable way to live. No one stops to wonder what it is they really want, behind all those things.
What we ought to be asking is, how can I experience more of life, so that each and every moment is more enjoyable?
I once heard Tony Robbins say that true wealth is the ability to fully experience life. It always resonated with me, but I could never tell you why. Now, I know why.
When I think about fully experiencing life, I interpret it as being fully present and in harmony with reality, doing exactly what's needed to lift the moment in front of you higher than it was before it found you.
What true wealth is not, is getting caught up in your own melodrama, being worried about the past or the future, or the myriad of "what ifs." That's the opposite of fully experiencing life. That's true poverty, and it's where most of us live.
This is just another one of many reasons why money and happiness have nothing to do with each other. I've said it many times and I'll say it again - if you have all the money you need to get all the things you want, you'll just have a new set of problems about how to keep the money and make sure everybody and everything around you behaves exactly how you need them to behave in order for you to enjoy it.
Until you learn to be okay with reality - that is, to accept that the thing happening in front of you is in fact the thing happening in front of you, whether you like it or not - you'll always be trapped in the game of trying to use life just to feel good.
Life has been happening for billions of years. We're here for a very, very short time. Why do we feel the outside has to happen a certain way in order to be okay?
Why can't we start by being okay that we're here to experience life, and then go out and play?
Live with substance!
Gabe Orlowitz
