We have two lives, and the second one begins when we realize we only have one
Confucius
Today I’m sharing a personal insight that might help you shift your mindset from work towards prioritization of fulfillment. Before getting started, I’ll ask you to reflect on this question: why do you work? Drop the curtains, we can start the play now.
Most people relate working hard to money and success. I’m guilty of those charges, I used to do that. There could be different reasons why we work in these modern times – to nourish a family, to be resourceful, to build wealth, to altruistically help others, to go to the moon.
Among all the possible motives, I can’t help but wonder if there is an ultimate reason why to work.
One thing I’ve found in my short existence is that the sooner you are concerned about this ultimate reason your horizon gets more clear.
It may not make things easier, but clarity provides an unencumbered path towards your fulfillment. How do we reach this point?
Enter The Travels
There are two types of people in this world, those who learn how the world works through books, and those who learn by doing things. I am not a very intelligent person, I have never been good at reading to learn. I learn by doing and making mistakes.
Traveling is a rich source of knowledge, and an area in which I have made tons of mistakes. It used to be an effective knowledge tradition not so long ago, but it seems that it’s less so today. The intent of my travels may be uncommon, but my adventures have provided me with life lessons I haven’t been able to learn through books.
Long story short:
- Traveling requires decision; often, it requires money (there are exceptions).
- To get money in an ethical way you have to work.
- To work you need a skill or something to exchange.
I am a slow learner, I had to repeat this cycle many times: I want to travel, I need money, I work because.. hmm.. As I was doing activities that filled my heart with good emotions it was inevitable to ask, is there a reason for working besides earning money? The answer became quite obvious.
The Purpose of Sweating Your Ass Off
Traveling taught me to be concerned about priorities, to empower the efforts I put into my activities to make the priorities meaningful. If you are going to sweat your ass off for something, make it worthy.
The purpose of work is to work with purpose. It is to create the conditions that allow you to become someone rather than doing things just to stay busy.
Who do you want to become? What do you want to do that helps you attain a mindful life? That’s another topic to develop, but you get the idea. The outcome of this mindset shift will probably move you towards working in something you love, eventually making your life even richer.
I am aware this is an approach highly influenced by individualism. It would be easy to question the selfishness of focusing on one’s self-realization instead of contributing to humanity as a whole. Conversely, who says a fulfilled individual can’t help a community? Civilizations are formed by individuals on the first step.
To Regret or To Fulfill – It’s Your Choice
There are hundreds of occupations in any given civilization. As individuals, we live in times where we have the freedom to select what fits our natural inclinations.
This is a privilege if you compare this to times when people’s occupations were assigned at birth. If you were the son of a baker, you became a baker. You couldn’t complain and you grew up learning how to bake bread for shawarma, pizza or chapatis. End of story.
If you want to become an artist, prioritize it, make the decision. Use the wealth you build with your work to create the conditions that allow you to become an artist. Strive for something meaningful to you.
Right there lays the difference between living and merely existing. You don’t want to become part of the grotesque statistics of people who hold painful regrets on their deathbed.
In the book, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, Bronnie Ware exposes the sorrows, frustrations, and trends of those she helped during their last days of life. I don’t want to freak you out with the content of this eye-opening book, so I’ll just share the top two (2) regrets of people on their deathbed.
- I wish that I had let myself be happier.
- I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
I don’t see people wishing to have more work on that list. As we learned in the win one extra day of life challenge, we live seventy five (75) years average. I can’t stress enough how important it is to become aware of the need for fulfillment as early as possible. We should focus more on spending quality time on earth during this short span of a thing called life.
Use Travel For Knowing Yourself
Why traveling? In my case, traveling is the embodiment of a priority. It could be something else for you, singing, acting, racing. So use that to learn about yourself.
As a final piece of advice, I would suggest traveling with a different mindset than taking a vacation.
Instead of seeing travel as an escape from work, try seeing it as a justification for your work, as an opportunity to learn something new.
In my travels, I have met extraordinary people who showed me how being conscious pays off short and long term in life. It may sound foolishly romantic, but people who sell things as simple as bracelets to gather X amount of money to use it for Y purpose are the ones I have perceived as truly capable of bearing this fucked up society. They hardly get affected by insignificant things such as three seconds of tardiness on the subway.
Use travel as an opportunity to reflect on your well-being. Explore places that interest you from within rather from what you read on Tripadvisor or Yelp. Allow your true character to unveil what is important to you. What is important to you is what you should emphasize. Build an environment that helps you nourish this conspicuous source of happiness.