Do you ever feel like you are just spinning your wheels in life, pushing harder and harder but getting nowhere? Like your life is in a rut?
Or, just when you think you are getting somewhere, and you feel yourself moving forward, you run into another obstacle?
Many of us struggle, every day, but our own lives seem to be particularly fruitless.
Sometimes, we think we know what we want, then we find out that, just because our friends or our neighbours had it and seemed to love it, we didn’t get the pleasure out of that thing that we expected. So, we buy more, just to fill the hole that we felt from the disappointment in the first object.
It’s a lot like a drug addiction. First, just a sample. A little bit. Then, if we don’t get the high we wanted or expected, we try a little more. Worse, we do get the high, for a moment, and then we crave more. And more. And more.
But, each time, we reach a point where that drug isn’t doing it for us. Yet, we already are addicted to it and we need more, giving up other things to get our short-term high.
It isn’t just drugs. It’s everyday things, everyday purchases.
I’m sure you know people who have lots more stuff and lots more money than you. But I’m going to bet that they don’t see themselves as rich.
We have friends who own one large cottage, for the summer, one very expensive home for their primary home, one condominium in the tropics for winter. They are so conscious of their poverty that they make sure they have every point, perk and penny that their charge cards provide to them. They talk about “the rich people.”
My brother-in-law always has to have the latest techie gadget. He loves to show his most recent acquisition. He never shows me his credit card bills.
A client bought a fancy house in an upscale neighbourhood when he and his wife both got their promotions. Instead of buying the best house in his former neighbourhood, he bought a typical one in a much fancier neighbourhood. So he had risen to the top of his old social scale, but now, he starts again at the bottom or middle of the new one. Paid so much for the mortgage they couldn’t afford furniture, so they kept their drapes closed. Still, strangers in the community must have marvelled at the lovely home (that he couldn’t afford), alongside all the other lovely homes, and wished they were rich, too. If they only could see behind that Wizard of Oz curtain.
Yet, my wife and I are as rich as all of them are. More fulfilled, too. We just don’t own stuff. But we also own almost no stress or worry. I wouldn’t say we are happy, like a drunk on a bender or a 4-20er on a high, but we are fulfilled, contented, satisfied and satiated. That is our happiness.
Now, for any of you who have explored simple living or minimalism, you may think this sounds suspiciously like that. And maybe it is something similar. After all, I have been living a simple lifestyle since I was 26. Made lots of money, got rid of it. Done tons of things, kept the memories. Never owned much more than I needed, and spent a lot of effort, at first, learning the difference between want and need.
Yes, I have lived a simple life and I can declare that, for the most part, it is NOT SIMPLE. But it can be very satisfying, if you don’t get lost in the idea that simple living is the goal. IT IS NOT.
I wrote books on simple living, and they remain valid. But I wrote them thinking that simple living was what I was after, when it really was a byproduct of what I sought. At best, an objective, not a goal. The goal was a true sense of satisfaction.
It turns out that simplifying does help provide that for you. Deprivation does not. The challenge is in knowing the difference between happiness and pleasure, acquiring wealth and being wealthy, being stuffed or being satiated.
Back in the days of the Roman Empire, the wealthy would feast, gorge and puke, then feast again. They saw that as a rich life. But remember your worst hangover, or your most intense flu experience? Was the drinking worth it? Would you want to have the flu every morning, or even just every week?
There is an old expression: Ignorance is bliss. It seems condescending, but it isn’t far from the truth. Not knowing and “needing” what others have, not being stressed by things, seeing life in its simplicity all are part of moving toward contentment.
Now that I have lived the simple life, rubbed elbows with the rich, rescued the nouveau rich from financial predicaments and found my perfect balance in life, I can say that even the rich can have a simple, fulfilling life, and the average joe can be as rich in experiences as any millionaire.
Some of the rich got there by luck or by inheriting wealth. Many got there on the backs of others. But a significant number became financially wealthy through hard work and commitment.
You are facing the same road.
If you want to lose weight and are looking for a quick fix, search out some fad diet, that is doomed to fail. Listen to the one-size-fits-all hype that the media offers. You want lasting success, build a solid foundation of proper health care, healthy eating habits, proper exercise. Listen to the health professionals.
Living a fulfilled life follows the same path as financial success or healthy lifestyles: knowledge, hard work, commitment and then success.
I’m going to bore you in the next few segments. I’m going to flood you with theories and old ideas, but they are theories and old ideas that have worked, sometimes for thousands of years.
There are topics like stoicism, spartan living, _____ and _____. Boring stuff. I’m going to talk about greater good and morality. I’m going to talk about Ikigai and eastern stuff. I’m going to talk about North American indigenous spiritualism.
And maybe you will be bored. Maybe the knowledge and research will be too much for you. Maybe you will say to heck with it.
But think of the first few parts like an African explorer, as you hack your way through the jungle undergrowth where almost no sunlight penetrates. Tough stuff. Boring stuff. Hard work. Then, you break through into an oasis of tropical colour and life, and you realize it was all worth it.
Just to brag a little, I come from a life of extreme poverty, but, more significantly, I come from a family where none lived a full, or normal life. Parents died in their fifties and sixties, brother in his forties, one in his sixties. Had a couple of ancestors that lived all the way into their early seventies. No “super agers.”
I think it was because of the way they had to live. It was hard, and it was tense.
I just had my physical. Almost mid-seventies. Absolutely every physical test shows I have no… zero… health problems. Of course, I could keel over before I finish this sentence… No, I guess not. But there are no guarantees. That means that we can’t count on waiting for the future to come to us, or to find fulfillment in life. We must seek it out, actively.
My closest friend turned 70 this year. He is anxious, because he thinks he has not much time to see and do all the things he wants. Possibly, it’s because he didn’t search hard enough for how he wanted to live throughout his prior 69 years.
I didn’t show my face until just now for a reason: if you, being younger, had known my age, you may have discounted my ideas as being that of someone out of touch. But I’ve lived the life and continue to do so and can truly say that I have a very fulfilling existence. Have had for decades.
So, if you are 30, 50 or 80, I want to say to you, your life is in your hands. You choose how you want it to be. Fad diet or long-term healthy strategies? Fun followed by hangover, or fulfillment leading to more satisfaction?