“By choosing to live above the ordinary level we create extraordinary problems for ourselves. The ultimate goal is to make this earth a paradise.”
— Henry Miller, author
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“It felt SO good”.
Recently, I was talking to a guy who is part of a business support group, and he’d just called the other members out for some poor behaviour.
The vast majority went one way, but he knew something was off, and decided to say so.
This takes a bunch of courage, as you probably already know. And it’s part of the extraordinary problems we create for ourselves that Henry Miller talks about, above.
For it’s so much easier to stay quiet, or even get sucked along in the tribe’s way – to NOT exercise our courage. Tellingly, those are exactly the times when I’ve felt the least proud of myself: when I haven’t practiced my own values for the fear of the consequences.
It’s easy to think about your values. It is much much harder to put them into action, isn’t it? And yet the rewards of doing so are huge.
The sweetest pillow is being able to go to bed at night, content in the knowing you did your best; and that tomorrow you’ll get many more chances to practice who you truly are once again.
Being extraordinary means you have to be true to yourself. As long as you seek to build and not destroy, I don’t think you can go wrong.
Being extraordinary means you are never finished. You will constantly be shown more. And you love that fact! – “More? I can be better? How wonderful!”.
I don’t know about you, but the more I attempt to live this way, the more I feel I am looked after. That I am shown what I need to be, and it’s not a punishment, it feels like the ultimate GPS.
I recently found out that the Latin root of the word, confidence, means to trust.
Being extraordinary involves the trust that if you truly meet the need of the moment, that is enough for an extraordinary life.
And the more I do this, the more I see it’s true, the more natural it becomes, the more exceptional I see it is. Because my old life was so full of control and grasping and trying … yet all aligned with fear of missing out, fear of what the others will think.
Now –
It doesn’t happen much anymore, but often in the past people would tell me that the practice of meditation was selfish.
Yet an enlightened world only comes from enlightened people. It is only through us dropping fear and limitation and negativity that we can truly make change.
Meditation is not the rejection of the world, it is the strengthening of who we truly are beyond everything that holds us back from being that.
And when you live in that extraordinary state, you become such a lighthouse to shine and guide and steer. Just in your presence alone, people are comforted and inspired. If you do or say anything on top? That’s extra wisdom and compassion in action.
My buddy was so proud of exactly that.
He said, “It feels like I was a boy and now I’m becoming a man.”
How powerful is that? How great must that feel to live?
Growing up, becoming better, making a difference, attempting to be something much more than ordinary ... How wonderful.
So that’s my thoughts on that this fine morning.
One last thing:
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“We all die. The goal isn’t to live forever. The goal is to create something that will.”
— Chuck Palahniuk
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Go well!
Arjuna