What Do You Wish To Do With This Life

We have been given an opportunity to live. We have been given a bolus of time.

We have been given a Life.

I don’t know why it’s been given to us. I don’t know where it comes from. I don’t know who the “giver” is.

All I know is what I know. And that is that we have, in fact, been given this thing called a Life.

Let’s talk about you.

What do you wish to do with this life?

I’ve put you on an incredible spot. And I realize that if you give me an answer right away, it will be a response from the mind and thus a wholly FALSE and CONDITIONED one. So don’t respond in the form of an answer.

As we speak, allow this question to seep into your skin.

What is it that you wish to do with the life you’ve been given?

It’s a question that we never ask ourselves. And the reason that we never ask ourselves the question is because we are too busy running and chasing.

If I may be honest, the absolute truth is that we are all simply waiting to die. Our lives are a waiting room. We have settled like cement into our daily routines and it is in the middle of a certain part of this routine that we will die.

The truth is that we have already reached the end of our life. We are simply continuing the routine until we are alive no more.

You might logically say, “But wait. I’m not waiting to die. I’m building my business. I’m in the midst of creating a name for myself. I’m not settled into a routine.”

My friend, do you not see? Chasing after success IS your routine. Hoping for tomorrow’s reward IS your routine. Believing that tomorrow will be better than today IS your routine.

And by chasing after these successes, you are essentially saying that this is how you wish to spend this life you’ve been given.

But the man who spends his life accumulating achievements has wasted his life. Because the person to whom the achievements belong is only here for a short time.

A scientist has visions of winning The Nobel Prize. He knows that at this very moment the Nobel Prize exists. But is he excited about it? No.

But if he wins it he will certainly be excited about it. So the Nobel Prize ITSELF means nothing to him. It only has meaning and excitement for him if IT BECOMES HIS.

BUT, if he himself is only going to be here for a short time, of what use is the excitement? The Nobel Prize Medal may itself last for thousands of years. But the man who wins it will be dead in 80 years.

So what’s the excitement about?

To spend this life you’ve been given, for a five minute experience on a stage?

I am often asked, “Does this mean that success and achievement are pointless?”

They are not only pointless, they are completely destructive.

I will explain.

If an individual has a particular talent, he immediately begins to think of a way that he can exploit that talent for monetary means. To make a “career” out of it, so to speak.

If we look at the bulk of professional athletes and professional “anything’s” we see that their lives are full of turmoil. Despite the fact that they are “playing a game” and “doing what they love” for a living. Despite having “everything” they have nothing.

Why is this the case?

Is it because they chose to “make a career” out of their talent, rather than “just doing it for fun?”

No.

It is because in the course of making a career out of it, somewhere along the way they lost their Relationship with their art.

You can make millions from your art. You can earn fame and notoriety until your heart’s content. None of it will trouble you.

As long as the relationship with your art has been preserved.

And what is that relationship?

Innocence.

My friend, the moment you lose that primordial seed of innocence with your art, you’ve lost everything. And your career will become your prison.

It is the same with business. It is the same with any human being who loses the initial thread which bound them to their native gift.

Exploit it if you like. But if you Replace it, you’re doomed.

Whether it is success, spirituality, commerce, or manual labor, ask yourself what it is that you wish to do with this life you’ve been given.

How do you wish to spend your days? You only have so many of them left.

What can you do that will allow you to look back from your deathbed, one minute before you die, and say “I am fully content with dying. For what I did with my life is so satisfying that I don’t have the heart to ask for one day more.”

Let this be your litmus test. Let this be your standard.

Let one day be your entire life.

And let one single moment be your entire Existence.