Life. It’s not a Game.

Game of Life

We all wonder, at times, what we are supposed to be doing during our 100 years or less on this planet.

If anyone over 100 is reading this I admire your embrace of technology and please take no offense to my assumption that you should be dead by now.

Some people  try to amass as much money as possible, other choose to enjoy the many influences this world has to offer. In my pondering of what I should do I have decided to look at life, humans and purpose on the most basic level.

I have heard some people look back on their life and have common regrets:

– Not spending enough time with family/kids

– Not keeping in touch with friends/family

– Not living healthier – Working too much

– Not telling someone how they feel

These all seem to have a common theme; human interaction. The regrets that are not immediately linked to human interaction affect the length of time one could spend engaged in human interaction. If you take a purely self-centered approach to living you could deduce that you should spend your life doing only those things that bring you pleasure. This could be in the form of intercourse, drugs, adventure, harm to others, drinking or many other stimulants. If you had a weak or non-existent conscience this could lead to a very experienced life and likely a short one. But, as we all know, this is not what many people want for their lives.

Life comes down to a series of experiences. You make friends, you experience a range of emotions, you see or hear or feel or taste or smell or listen to many different things, your memory stores the best and worst of these and blurs up the rest. The undesirable times that many people can relate to include boredom, pain and work.

It seems to me that the point of all this is to maximize the positive interactions and lessen the undesired outcomes.  Now that I have stated the most obvious truth possible and just before you decide to stop reading, answer this question. If you died today, what would you regret?

Revisit the list above, perhaps it is included there or perhaps you have other regrets. What are you doing now to maximize your positive experiences and minimize regrets? Why is this article so simple but still applies to all of us? I almost stopped writing this article half way through but realized I need this as much as anyone else. REMINDER: You will die some day, you are not promised tomorrow, start doing whatever it is that you need to do today.

For more fitness lifestyle advice and weekly fitness podcasts visit www.elementaryfitness.com

What will be your legacy?

What will be your legacy?

When I was 17 someone asked me what my legacy was going to be. No one had ever asked me this before and honestly I never contemplated what people would think about me after I was dead.

The question was posed by a franchise company who allowed me to operate a painting business using their name and resources. They gave examples of business icons such as Ray Crock and Bill Gates while uncovering that there was nothing drastically different from those icons and myself.

Ever since then I have approached business and the decisions I make with the mindset that what I do today will be come my legacy tomorrow. From the time I spend with my family to the way I treat other people, all of it must pass through the legacy filter.

Some of the best advice I have been given is to remember that when you die your inbox will not be empty. You will always have one more thing that you can do but having your priorities in order will help you decide if you should.

I’ve heard responsible, organized professionals refer to this as “time management” but I would like to point out that time does not respond well to management. I’m pretty sure time has gone on at the same pace since it began and that there is no one that can tell it what to do. Instead the correct, however trivial, term is more appropriately “priority management”. All the successful people of the word got there by using 24 hour days and 7 day weeks. A conversely cold observation is that the less successful people of the world used the same amount of time.

There is no right or wrong answer to the question there is only those with a purpose and those without. What will be your legacy?

Living on Purpose- Don’t Settle

Movie- The Bucket List

When I was 13 I starting writing a list of all the things I wanted to do in my lifetime. In 2007 a movie starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman came out with this same idea and lists of this nature are now referred to as “Bucket Lists”.

The two terminally ill patients in this movie create lists which include some of the same goals I have on my list. I, however, never limited myself to “realistic” goals. Some of my loftier goals include traveling to space and walking on the moon. With Virgin Galactic’s constant progress these goals may soon be very attainable. (http://www.virgingalactic.com/)

Why is it that so many people can dream so big as children and then settle for so little when they grow older? It’s not a matter of resources, especially in the United States! Immigrants come here (you know…the land of opportunity) to make their fortunes and live free. Why are so many “privileged” people so unhappy in a country that offers so much? Because we settle. We settle for less than our best, for less than our full potential, for the standard and we let every other person in that same predicament drag us back down if we start to get too ambitious.

A personal hero of mine, Dave Ramsey, gives this excellent example of how people settle.

– A group of monkeys were locked in a room with a pole in the center. Some luscious, ripe bananas were placed on the top of the pole. When a monkey would begin to climb the pole, the experimenters would knock him off with a blast of water from a fire hose. Each time a monkey would climb, off he would go, until all the monkeys had been knocked off repeatedly, thus learning that the climb was hopeless. The experimenters then observed that the other primates would pull down any monkey trying to climb. They replaced a single monkey with one who didn’t know the system. As soon as the new guy tried to climb, the others would pull him down and punish him for trying. One by one, each monkey was replaced and the scene repeated until there were no monkeys left in the room that had experienced the fire hose. Still, none of the new guys were allowed to climb. The other monkeys pulled them down. Not one monkey in the room knew why, but none were allowed to get the bananas. Story from The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey Pg. 19-20

In another post I will discuss my 30 day challenges that will be called, “Be a Better…”. These are basically an excuse to cross off some goals on my list while inspiring readers to go out and do something now. Stop waiting for the perfect moment. Go out and make some progress right now towards whatever makes you happy! No more waiting for the stars to align, your life is in your hands. So start living…on purpose