Pondering what matters most

Let’s face it – life is a heck of a thing! It can be really demanding? Dwelling is much tougher than not living. It requires only a seconds to go away, but it requires a lot more to dwell. It takes a lifetime to make a life. Why? The abilities essential to live take a lifetime to figure it out. 

In contrast to the university method where as a student, one gets classes ahead of time that they need to take. Daily life operates the other way around, it is spherical. In life, people look first and then discover the classes afterward. This is where issues arise. As long as a person is alive there is a lot they have to deal with. It is not readily apparent what’s next.

One’s lifestyle is not only about pleasure to be enjoyed. Unless of course, that is all that is important. It can also be about nurturing and expansion. When nurture, more than satisfaction is the objective, one needs to modify their lifestyle. The emphasis shifts from existence, a lifestyle of relieve, to a lifestyle of increased significance.

In our present day, quick-paced world, so much has been misappropriated in the quest for survival. Everyone monitors lifestyle. In the hurry-to-meet-up-with the every day demands of a person’s social live, significance is exchanged for lifestyle. Lifestyle is relative of course and consider that material possessions, private accomplishments, the setting and achievements of the ambitious may actually be a disguise for why we exist in the first place. 

So, if this Is the essence – perhaps it might be worth taking a look at our day-to-day activities, our motives, and ask: are we just here to make a dwelling or we are here to make a life (by virtue of our lifestyle)?

It might be worthwhile to take a minute out of our routines for the day, or even once a week, maybe on Friday 🙂 and for a time, ponder: what am I actually constructing with my existence? Is it for external factors, like social media, or friends, children, career, maybe retirement?  Has modern society conditioned us to not consider those things we know deep inside of ourselves that matter the most? If we left the earth today, what excellence would be the breath and depth we had in all these years we were here? What price would we have paid with our daily life? If life were weighed on some scale, what worth would our existence be? What would be the real cost of our daily life? Would it have been equivalent to the factors we used in order to get what we wanted, what we have or what we wished for? Would it be equivalent to those other people who would/will outlive us? Success, fame, electrical power, income, material possessions — are these all there is to daily life? Perhaps considering concerns like this might be helpful to better prepare for what lies ahead. 

To be prepared means to accurately consider what really matters most.

As people grow older, they more deeply regret inactions (what they *didn’t* do) more than actions (what they *did* do). – Daniel Pink