It doesn’t matter if your life is harrowing and stressful, or boring and lacklustre, if you’re not having a good time, then something is off. Period.
Just for a minute, let’s imagine that your highest purpose has nothing to do with saving the world, creating success, or expressing yourself in some way – but just to have a good time and live your life on your own terms.
This might be hard to believe at first, but it’s actually totally reasonable!
After all, you weren’t put on this planet to do what you’re supposed to do, you came into this life to do exactly what you want. Isn’t this so? Now you might immediately think about all the unsavoury things that you have to do in order to maintain the lifestyle that you have, such as going to work and washing the dishes. But I argue that it’s not that you don’t want to wash the dishes – but that you DO want to wash them because that’s how you get clean dishes.
In other words: You live in a world of choices and consequences. Certain choices lead to certain consequences – other choices lead to other consequences. If you wash your dishes, you get clean dishes. If you don’t, then you don’t.
It’s crucial that we get this straight because buried in the above two paragraphs is the exact key that gets you out of the jail of your own life! Most people say “I have to wash the dishes” but that’s not true, right? No one does. Everyone just does what they want and get the consequences for their actions.
So returning to our earlier point about why you’re alive – you’re not here because you’re supposed to do anything. If you feel like you're "supposed to" do something, then we call this obligation. The implication here is that you choose Door A even though you'd rather go with Door B. So we have this idea that our life's purpose involves doing something that we'd otherwise rather not do. This gives our purpose a sort of burdensome quality about it.
See?
If our life involves doing something that we don't want to do, but feeling like we should, then we're living our life on someone else's terms. We're living our life according to someone else's idea! It's no longer our life to live but something that we're doing for someone or something else. And we are merely enduring it, waiting it out, trying to get through it.
And as you can imagine: enjoyment is nowhere to be found.
Enjoyment can tell you how authentically or inauthentically you're living your life!
So enjoyment now serves as a barometer for how authentically we're living our life!
Honestly then: How does life present itself to you?
Is it a prison? Something to wait out?
Is it an endless barrage of obstacles?
Is it a punishment for something you've done wrong?
Is it a testing ground on which you must prove yourself?
Is it a high-stakes chance to get something right?
If you answered 'yes' to any of these, then it shows that you see life as a means to some end other than itself. You believe that the act of carrying on your life must be done for someone or something else. This is inauthenticity.
Now please hear this absolutely essential point:
It's one thing to devote yourself to the service of something - a person, your child, a cause, a craft, a vision - but to do so from a place of choice. And it's a whole other thing to devote yourself to the service of that thing because you feel that you should. That's the difference between a life lived authentically and lived inauthentically, respectively.
If you're living your life authentically, you'll know it because you're enjoying it.
You'll find that you're enjoying it even when it gets hard, dark, sad, intense, or even painful. We're talking here about a very deep form of enjoyment that undergirds your whole experience and imbues it with meaning.
Switching from Obligation to Choice
Hopefully now you're fully sold on the importance of living life from choice as opposed to obligation and you're ready to make the shift yourself.
Here's what to do:
1. Take an honest assessment of how much obligation you carry in your life.
Just as a result of what we've covered here so far, can you be honest about how much you've made your life about obligation as opposed to choice? Spend some time with this as a journalling exercise and see what you get.
2. Untangle the Obligation.
Start with just one example of an obligation that you carry. Untangle it by noting both choices and their respective consequences. Note which consequences you're willing to experience and which ones you're unwilling to experience.
With these now plainly stated, it will become clear how frustrating it is that you can't take Choice A and get Consequence B. We spend so much time just wishing that we could make one choice and get the other consequence!
This is the central part of the untangling. Please take a moment to admit to yourself that Choice A leads to Consequence A, and that Choice B leads to Consequence B. Nothing else matters. There is no 'should'.
Even our concept of morals - of right and wrong - don't penetrate here. If you do something wrong, you'll receive the consequences (both internal and external) for doing it.
3. Do whatever you want.
Now do whatever you want!
Just do it from choice and with your eyes open.
From this place of choice, you know that your life is your own. You make choices on your own terms. Life becomes less complicated and more simple. Now you're in the driver's seat of your life.
It's possible after going through all of this that nothing changes. You still go to work, you still wash your dishes. It may look like nothing's happened. But in truth, something profound has happened. You are now living your life as a free agent. Your life will take on meaning and richness. More opportunity will show up for you.
Just watch.
4. Enjoy!
You can make a simple decision to make your choice, receive the consequences, and to enjoy them. Even if the consequences are hard, painful, or intense, see what happens when you intend to enjoy them as much as possible.
There is a link between Enjoyment and the highly sought-after Flow State
Can you see it?
Enjoyment is just the beginning. Through enjoyment, there's empowerment. We're doing things on our own terms. Only now can we get truly creative and manifest our inner gifts in the world.
Check out our group forum, The Sovereign Creators Collective where we are exploring and activating these insights in our lives.
If you need more support then check out my 1-1 Offering as well.
Take care!
Brent
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