How do you make the most out of every day and enjoy life? It is an age old question and one that may be a little more challenging for some as the economy slows down, people buy less stuff and stock market weath evaporates. How do continue to feel good, look good and enjoy life?
Like many of you, from time to time I found myself wondering what direction my life was going. Did I really want to spend 40+ hours in a cubicle or an office if I got promoted enough? Through high school and college, intuition was enough to get by and do fairly well. “Hard work” wasn’t needed and it usually seemed that the stuff we were learning especially in business classes was wrong. It didn’t make sense, it didn’t fit together. Then in the corporate world, nobody could think outside of the famous “box”. Programmers programmed, MBAs did whatever MBAs do which I still can’t figure out, project managers tried to manage projects they simply didn’t understand and then you had this “client service” bunch of people who get paid big bucks to smile and say “we’ll get back to you on that” but in most cases don’t really know anything.
My thinking was shaped by Eli Goldratt who wrote The Goal and other TOC books. TOC or Theory of Contstraints sounds strange, even complicated which may be why few people pay attention to it. Peter Senge at the MIT school of Organizational Learning & his book the 5th Discipline and the Fieldbook that goes with it both on organizational learning also shaped my thinking and approach to business and life.
After years and years of it getting progressively harder and harder to fall asleep at night and then drag myself into the office in the morning to talk about a bunch of nonsense and accomplish nothing I realized I wasn’t enjoying life much. Funny how after a while, feeling kinda blah during the day starts to feel normal. Well it isn’t and it shouldn’t be.
One thing I discovered along the way was What the Fuck Do We Know? watch it, it will help you think differently. One of the best quotes from it is the following:
“Why do we keep recreating the same reality? Is it possible that we’re so conditioned to our daily lives, so conditioned to the way we create our lives that we buy the idea that we have no control at all. We’ve been conditioned to believe that that the external world is more real than the internal world. This new model of science is just the opposite. It says what is happening within us will create what is happening outside of us.” The video below shows a clip from What the Fuck Do We KNow?
It is up to you, me and everyone else to shape and enjoy our own lives. This is the beginning. Believe in yourself, enjoy your life, know that how you look at things affects what happens in your life and the degree of enjoyment you get out of it. Get out of the house, take a day, week, month, or year off work and LIVE. Write about it, share your experiences, connect with other people. Go for an adrenaline rush, go vounteer, go travel around the block or around the world. Forget about living in a mansion, forget about all the crap you spend money on you will never use. Go for experiences, keep your body and mind sharp. Enjoy life now!
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