How Much Time Should You Spend Being Indifferent, Somewhat Annoyed, or Hating Life?

"So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they're busy doing things they think are important. This is because they're chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning." Tuesdays With Morrie

I don't know when exactly it happened to me, this need to get outside the self and get going. The first thoughts may have appeared to me as a young teen those early sunny mornings in the quiet little town of Bolton Connecticut where I grew up.

My father had a good job and we grew up in a very nice, very large house in that quite little town of 4,000. To this day I remember listening to the birds sing through the rarified air while a light, gentle breeze wafted through the slowly flapping curtains over up-drawn shades. Amongst that great comfort and ease I pined for something more.  At that  time I  knew not what it was but through experience and time discovered meaning.

What it was, was a desire to experience to stretch to grow to change to overcome to . . . live, for what is living if it is not moving forward. Death is simply standing still.

I know that we are to be happy, for our basic design requires it of us. We feel it most deeply, often times too subtlety, in those moments of unease working at a job that barely fulfills, if at all, never mind barely doing more than pay the bills. We feel it in moments of drudgery and boredom, sameness that cankers the soul and sets into the bones like a malignant tumor. Malignant because out of acceptance or fear of the deep examination required we never become fully aware of the need for change.

And this is where most fail, too many fail, have failed throughout existence and will continue to do so, for it takes first an awareness and then an uncanny desire to embrace fear and manage it for personal betterment that adds to our character, desire for more, and, most importantly, a desire to reach out to others to aid them in their struggles to overcome.

And that is the big sin or error made by most, not realizing that just accepting our current selves too much too often for too long will never get us to where we could have been, to a point where we enlarge ourselves, overcome ourselves, stretch ourselves constantly improving on personal betterment, adding joy and energy and focus and dedication to expanding our skills, talents, desires, abilities to take on more and more, inevitably getting to the point where we not only want to help ourselves and our immediate family but all of humankind or at least as much as we can affect in the few years we have on this wacky little orb we call earth.

For who desires to be unfulfilled. Who desires to have to every week say "Thank God it's Friday." Who instead would like to be so enthralled, so enraptured with life that work becomes life becomes joy becomes a never ending desire to go, go, go beyond the calendar to the reaching of a point where time stands still, to where time / space are wrapped up in a continuum that forever enraptures and enlivens, inspires and delights.

This is the meaning of life. It is achievable. It is possible. It is doable. And it is being done by thousands every, single, solitary twenty-four hour period this little orb spins on its wonderfully titled and needful axes. Maybe with the right number of people seeking bliss, seeking personal betterment through working toward days in which nearly every minute of every day after day after day after day are filled with desperately needed fulfilling, then we'd keep the earth spinning properly forever. Maybe.

Just maybe.

But we'll never know unless we try.

Sure, it's scary to step outside the norm to put down that job that existence that way of living that we believe has to be accepted, the death chant droning on, "That's just the way it is."  But only if you believe it  to be so.  For time and time and time and time again one after another has stood upon the shoulders of the accepting masses and said, "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it any more!" And they didn't. And then they did. They did and done BIG things.

They've overcome the naysayers, the doubters, fear, fear of failure, failure after failure after failure and put on a happy soul to the betterment of not only their experience but to that of all humankind. For what else is there to do? Drone on day after day within this ever so fleeting experience called mortality accepting limitations, accepting other's opinions of who we should be, how we should live, what we should do, think, eat, feel and desire?

Not me, brother. Not me, sister. Not me.

"The culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn't work, don't buy it." Tuesdays With Morrie

Why take great wisdom only from a dying man or from the dead. Why do we not believe our living prophets. Why do we have to only believe those on their death bed or in their graves before we take action, that great leap of faith.

Ah, but there are so many, so damn many who will get inspired but never take the leap of faith required to excel and exceed the norm, the many, to become the few, the one even who stands up amongst all the rest. But not for personal glory and fame, but to stand up, to stand up tall, pushing back the shoulders, straightening the waist and bowing the back to reach down, reach way down, down and deep to pull up, pull up one, two, three, four and more and more and more and more brothers and sisters. But to not only pull them up but to teach them the pulling and standing and stiffening of character and strength and pride in being to overwhelm the masses with passion, compassion, passion, and passion, and passion and love.

For is there anything else?

"Love wins. Love always wins."

"Love each other or die." Tuesdays With Morrie

Don't let culture win. Don't let the naysayer, the backtracker, the bowbender, the wrong-ender pull you down.

It is the Zen Buddhist who warns the student of the conventional. For, he states, titles, degrees, social positioning, wealth, material gain is all distraction for the temporary, the fleeting, the temporal minded. It is there to distract the weak, for it is only the strong of faith, meaning, and purpose who lift their gaze above the horizon, beyond the world, to the stars and the heavens and the eternities therein. But what do they see?

They see character, commitment, the self-accountable, the honorable, men and woman of their word, the honest, the humble, teachable, and willing to learn. These are the principles upon which human strength becomes in-human or super human to the point where the unimaginable begins, the unpredictable is predicted, the impossible possible, so possible that the magical becomes norm and the fantasy so many escape to becomes a wonderment made real. For it is only through working on our insides in overcoming our weaknesses and shortcomings through effort and toil, through honorable and brave means do we expand and then command fear.

"If you're trying to show off for people at the top, forget it. They will look down on you anyhow. And if you're trying to show off for people at the bottom, forget it. They will only envy you. Status will get you nowhere. Only an open heart will allow you to float equally between everyone." Tuesdays With Morrie

Open your heart account today. It is the perfect time to invest in that which has no down market. Be the one to inspire, not to merely fade into the background. There are no special people, only all to many not willing to step up to their potential. You too can be exceptional. But use your exception to promote and lift. Never look down your nose or any of your anatomy to others, for that road is short and the fall is steep.

Love your brothers. Love your sisters. Forget money, race, color, religion, stupid, smart, ugly, lame, all that separates and differentiates. Love on equal grounds. And do it again and again and again. Oh, and the wonder and joy found within. The wonder and joy found within.

"Love is how you stay alive, even after you are gone." Tuesdays With Morrie