You know how people seek adrenaline rushes because it makes them "feel alive?"
For me, it's fast cars. I don't race, but I spend a lot of time thinking about racing cars.
My question is:
Why can't we feel that aliveness all the time? Why can't we be always ecstatic, joyful, full of enthusiasm, all while feeling a deeper sense of inner peace?
If you've read any of my posts before, those questions should sound familiar. This entire blog is based around a single inquiry:
Why make our happiness conditional on the external world?
There's nothing at all wrong with seeking adrenaline rushes or 'living on the edge,' so to speak. If I had my way, I'd race cars all day. You might skydive, or be on a beach. Whatever it is you think you want, there's nothing wrong with it.
The problem lies in why you want it, and subsequently why you limit yourself to that experience.
In other words, you want it for the feeling of ecstasy it will give you. But why limit that feeling to one activity?
I'm not saying it's easy, but if you think about it, very few people even ask this question. Most of us assume that we can only be happy when things go our way. We take this for granted.
When the outside world matches our blueprint of how we think every thing and every one should behave - that goes for our friends, family, coworkers, sports teams, other drivers on the road, and even the weather - then we can feel good. Our mind quiets down, and for a moment, just temporarily, we feel relieved. But if one thing goes wrong, our happiness goes to shit.
Why is this? Does it have to be this way? Isn't there a better way?
To 99.99% of people, this is a given. You say, "Of course that's true! How else would it be if it weren't that way?"
But I'm challenging you to be one of the .01% of people who do ask why your happiness should be conditional on the outside world. You might not get all the answers right away. You might not get any answers right away. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't keep asking.
You see, there are just too many outside forces out of our control, that to make our happiness depend entirely on them is a losing formula.
Yet it's the formula we all sign up for, unknowingly.
I'm on the quest to uncover and unravel that deeper sense of inner well-being that's always there, regardless of what's going on around me.
My thoughts might run rampant, my emotions might be stirred up, people around me might be acting crazy, but I'm safe in here, witnessing it all. Things around me might be in turmoil, but I'm good inside.
This is where I want to be. This is true freedom - liberation from our well-being's current dependency on the external, or the style, as I call it.
With a true grounding in substance, there's nothing that can touch us.
When we're fully present - which tends to happen when we're engaged in activities like skydiving or race-car driving, or even being on the beach - the mind quiets down, or at minimum, we distance our true selves from the noise of the mind.
We experience those things, but we're not lost in them. There's a huge difference.
Racing cars, traveling the world, making tons of money, raising a family... those are all wonderful, but are they what I really want?
No.
All I really want is an unconditional sense of inner fulfillment. Do you?
Live with substance!
Gabe Orlowitz
