I don’t know about you, but my experience with living life is best seen as a flood of objects, obsessions, points, events, ideas, choices, things being flung at me. I can even say my inner world feels, at times, like a hurricane where I am wrestling with the hurried chaos to find the eye, the inner peace of this storm. At other times, it feels like I am in a relentless, incessant, and mind-numbing pontification from my mind about the world around me and within me. The messages I hear say, “You are not safe. You are bad. Don’t trust yourself.”
I suspect my inner experience of life isn’t much different from what most people face daily. We are caught in the middle of a storm with few options, and yet we are seeking refuge from the deluge. Unfortunately, in seeking asylum from the constant pandemonium playing out in our minds, we lose sight of our primary objective—to find meaning, to experience, to be.
Most of us exist within a mental prison designed to protect us from the savages craving to destroy us. This primitive prison helped our ancestors to survive the ferocious beasts who saw us as lunch. Today, the ferocious beasts are fantastical musings by a bored mind looking to stay useful, relevant, and engaged. Our protective mind tends to see the world in absolutes like good/bad, right/wrong, fair/unfair, and we customarily focus on the negative, protective measures. This means when we apply negative absolute thinking into a relatively non-threatening world, the outcome is akin to creating drama. Every mother should understand a bored child is one who creates trouble.
So here we sit with a bored mind looking for trouble and doing a great job creating it. Yet, this is not the life we wish to live; we yearn for a meaningful life aligned with our goals and dreams. We want a full life, not an empty, excuse ridden existence.
To transform the storm, we can’t expect miracles or brainwashing. Practicing awareness and patience start the process of destroying the bricks protecting the bored mind. Awareness is an awakening to another possibility; it is an exploration. Existentially, we want to understand our purpose of being in this life. I often hear the question, “Why am I here?”
Let’s start our exploration with this question, “How do you want your legacy to be?”
What do you wish will your loved ones to remember you? Do you want to be known as a great dad or a loving partner or a successful entrepreneur? These would be rewarding and great answers. Nothing wrong with them, yet they do not speak to who you are as a person. These are goals. If you are a series of goals, then what are you doing here on Earth?
You are not a checklist of things; you are not defined by your achievements. Your goals are the manifestation of your values, which point to a deeper significance for your life.
What does it mean to you to be a great dad or a loving partner or a successful entrepreneur? Why be these things? What does it mean about you? Does being a great dad show us you are a compassionate person? Does being a loving partner show us you are empathetic? Will being a successful entrepreneur point out you are a generous person?
Imagine living your life using a values filter, by making decisions in life using a lens that supports your overall purpose, which is created by you. By knowing and exploring your values, you can calm the storm; you quiet the protective and bored mind, and your existence transforms into a life. Values lead you to purpose and meaning. Values lead to an inner peace because you are focused on what will enhance your values.
What will your legacy be?
I’m certain mine will include bear hugs.
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This story has been republished to Medium.
Photo credit: Lindy Baker on Unsplash