I am lucky, I make o.k. money that lets me go on vacations, live in a great house and have fun spending money on clothing, good food and gadgets. All of that is fun but the real fun for me is when I feel alive. What do I mean by ‘feeling alive’. I feel alive when my senses are awake, my emotions are free to feel everything, when I can feel sad and cry when something horrible happens to someone and when I can feel happy and excited when something really great happens as well. The more years we are around, the more we think we have figured life out. We have our set routines. We know what we’ll eat for breakfast, what style of furniture we like, what style of clothing we will wear, what the people are we like and who we don’t like, what religion we belong to and so on. The more we think we have figured life out the less we re-invent ourselves. But unfortunately, at the same time our range of the emotions we can feel goes down, our spontaneity goes down and our willingness to explore decreases. When most of us were in our teens we were excited to explore who we were are going to be. We wanted to learn, make money, find great friends and life partners to build our lives with. The sad thing is that most people will not change up their routines any longer when they are in their 50th and 60th and 70th.
The real luck I have is not that I make o.k. money but that I found people who are explorers no matter how many years they are around. I just attended the People Unlimited New Years Launch Event in Scottsdale and I was lucky to be with Bernadeane who I saw completely change her routine around once again. And Bernie is not in her teens, or 20th or 30th. I know Bernie now for about 25 years and I’ve seen her change her routine around over and over again. Usually when I see Bernie change is when she feels that what she has been doing is no longer building her body or the people around her. Bernie changes things most people wouldn’t change like life style, food, opinions, believes, the way of interacting with close friends and family. Each time I see her change these things, I see Bernie be more alive. I see her more charismatic, more vibrant, more smiling and laughing, more excited about her day, more excited about her future. My mom is only 10 more years around than Bernie and I care for her a lot but I have not seen my mom excited about her future for a very long time.
The most fun I have is when I get up in the morning and don’t live the perfect routine but have the intend to do whatever will most build my body and the body of everyone around me that day. What can I say, what can I do, how can I interact with my co-workers and clients so that their life is easier that day? How can I make the people around me feel valuable, wanted, smart and just overall great? How many people can I make feel that way?
It’s so much fun to live my day that way because I have to re-invent myself all the time and there is no set routine. It has no right and wrongs and the dreadful feelings of being impatient and frustrated with others don’t exist. My day is not planned around a long and important ‘to do’ list but around the intend to do what will make my life better and what can make the lives of the people around me better. This requires all my senses to be aware. Great routines always come with the threat of failure. Failure because I might not be able to do everything I said I would. Living around the intend to making my own life and the lives of others better, easier and more fun knows no failures. In the end those failures of missing a goal or not completing something you had committed to are fun killers. They can make you feel small and insufficient and unimportant because once again you have broken your word. Making another person smile and have a moment of laughter or making a certain task easy for others or just giving someone that feeling of how important they are to you has instant gratification. In those moments failure does not exist and the feeling small and insignificant which is so common is extinguished. There are no limits of how easy life can be and how happy we can be and how important we are to each other.