How alive are you?
Jan 20, 2019
The other day a friend sent me a video from one of those Indian gurus talking about parenting. Well, this ship has sailed for me, so I checked out what this guy had to say on other topics and came across another video, talking about the 3 things we should all do in the morning.
Arghh….another one of those “morning routine” things? Those really start to come out of my ears meanwhile. All those super disciplined people who trigger my bad conscious as I cannot seem to get all those little ducks in a row: 7.30 shower, get ready – tick, 8.00 Yoga - tick, 8.30 drink lemon water - tick, 8.35 plan the day - tick, 9.00 breakfast - tick…. you get my gist.
My days are far more chaotic. Sometimes yoga happens, sometimes not, I don’t shower every day (gasp) and do not do extensive planning every day….
I digress.
Do you live the life you want?
So – this video triggered something completely different when I listened to it, as it was NOT about a regular morning routine. Rather about perspective. And how to trigger that EVERY day.
We all experience those moments in our life, when something drastic happens, right? A close friend dies. We are in an accident or find ourselves having a disease that scares the living daylight out of us.
THESE are the moments when we start thinking. Where we realize how precious life is. That we might run out of time. That we are mortal. ALL OF US.
And that we might be wasting our time with stuff which does not make us happy or even living a life that is not what we want.
And then this moment passes - and we continue like we did before.
As those habits and often the “comfortable” life takes over and we forget what this incident triggered in us.
I get it – I´ve done that before.
As it´s an effort to actually get clear on what is really important for us and HOW we can get there, and life is overwhelming and exhausting enough for many of us as it is already.
So how we can we now get perspective regularly, find out what’s important and NOT add even more to our calendar?
Well, I can answer the first 2 questions immediately:
- When you wake up in the morning, and you’re alive, get a big smile on your face. 150,000 people on this planet were not so lucky. Then check if the handful of people who are REALLY important for you are alive too. That can put another smile on your face. And you know what? Immediately you got your perspective, AND you start your day much happier. When we remember that just alone being ALIVE is no longer a given, and today, we are, let’s acknowledge that or even celebrate it. Even for just a few seconds or even a minute if we are feeling particularly lucky.
- What’s really important? Well, the first answer will have given you some answers already about people in your life. And maybe even the awareness that it’s important to start defining this “being ALIVE” a bit more. So, if your life is important to you, honour it while taking the time defining what else is crucial in your life. And you will probably find out that when we work on this level of perspective, the answers will revolve around how we’d like to feel and be, rather than a list of possessions (which are not bad per se – most of those will take a back seat though when really going to the basics).
Now to the third question: How do we not add anything to our busy agenda?
Well, no 1 takes a minute or so in the morning. We all have that.
No 2 is a bit trickier. As it takes time to raise awareness and to think and feel (the very rough process to get there).
The good news: when we know what is really important to us, we’ll suddenly find ourselves having much more time, as we don’t waste our time with stuff which someone might expect from us, which we actually never liked doing or we simply just did out of habit.
Life’s precious, so let’s do the best to live it in the best way we can. And what that is lies in the eye of the beholder. As long as we’re happy with it – it is exactly perfect.
