Good Wednesday morning. I hope this week finds you on a direct line to where you want to go in your life. I hope that you find your true path, and not the path of chasing approval or looking for the easy way out. Today I want to address the idea we talked about the other day of the greener grass but also about how life changes when you pursue a love and not a lust to get where you truly want to go.
Have you ever thought about what you are seeking out of this life? The goals or things you want to do? Are they about chasing a lust? Or are you seeking what you really want to love in life? So many people get this one thing confused in life. I tell you, when you get the answer to this down you will watch life move at a much faster pace towards real goals versus what looks good, like money.
If you have been a long time reader of my blogs and other online posts you will know I have started over many times. The last start over was the toughest to do, but it was the one that gave me some of the greatest perspective on facts about my life. Many years ago now Michael Jackson wrote and sang the song, “Man in the Mirror.” The words in that song said “I’m looking at the man in the mirror, I’m asking him to make a change.” Well this may be one of those times to look in the mirror. When you do, you’ll see the person who could make that change.
A few years ago I was going through one of those personal growth books. It asked me to give an information sheet to several people I trust and who knew me. It said to ask them some questions about who I was, what I was good at, when they saw me the happiest in life. Well today’s post is very much inspired by one thing my mom wrote on that form. She told me how in life she always watched me chase money, not a dream, not a purpose, but money. It reminded me of the little boy who is asked what he wants to be when he grows up, he says, “A doctor, ‘cause they make lots of money.”
I was always chasing that money. How much did I want? More. It was always more, no matter how much I got, there was more needed to make my happy. I needed it to have a nicer house, to have a better car, to eat at better places, to wear better clothes. Well they were all one thing: a lust. It was chasing something that was a flash, here to make you seem happy for the moment, then after the moment passed, you needed a new happy.
What is the difference? Well, let’s talk about love. Love is the person who works at a charity that helps single moms get an education, then get a better job and better life. They work there because they want some small boy to live and grow up in a better world. I know a man who does this in the Dallas area. He sold his business and put all the money into a new ministry to do this helping those who cannot help themselves. He loves what he does. Love is the man and woman who stay in a relationship and are committed to each other; they stay and love one another, like Gwynne and I do, even when we have different opinions about things.
In life we will not always see eye to eye, but we love each other and we love the heart of the other person. Love is when you find a dream and chase it, like the many who I have met after leaving a corporate job to work at a place like Starbucks and find more joy in serving coffee and running a small store than they did working their entire life just to become a Vice President of a division for two years before the job kills them.
So what does this have to do with our theme this week? Many people on this earth are still looking at the neighbor’s grass, talking about how it looks better over there. Then some spend so much time comparing a life that is not theirs to what they have, they take the opportunity to jump out of the life they have for a momentary lust. Today I want to finish up with a story to get you to think.
Two men were lying in hospital beds in the same room. Neither of them could get up. One had the bed by the window. Once a day the man by the window would be helped to sit up in his bed. Then he would tell the other man what he saw outside. He described a great world with a park, then one day it was a parade, children playing – all sorts of wonderful things. Each day the man in the other bed looked forward to that time of day but he also became jealous of what his partner could see while he was stuck in the bed without the window. Then one day the man by the window started to choke and gasp. The other man let his jealousy take over and let the man die, thinking he could then have the bed by the window. He got his wish and was moved there and was eager to be helped to sit up so he could see all the wonderful things he’d been told about. Through much pain and with all the strength he could muster to look out the window, he saw that a brick wall was all that was outside the window.
In life we can find simple joy and spread it. The man who looked at a wall every day but painted a picture of a world to help the other man through was spreading simple joy. The other man, in his lust to see it all, soon realized when he got to see what was really outside the window that he had let the very best part of his day die. The world you are creating can be the greatest picture you have ever seen, or you can lust for a picture someone else has. When you get it, you will see others have the challenges in life that make their lives just as hard. It’s not what you have in life, I’s what you do with what you have. Take your life and love it.
I’m Tim Gillette, the Rocker Life Coach. It’s time to live the life you always wanted, to love what you do and those you share your life with. Find your love in life, stop chasing little lusts and you will become the RockStar in your world.
