Live Life On Your Own Terms

By Frosty Wooldridge
3-4-14

In this high-speed society we created for ourselves, Americans live in traffic-congested cities with skyscrapers piercing the sky.

On the ground floor, humans race to catch crowded busses, packed subways and Yellow Cabs. With expressways gridlocked from dawn to dusk, people overflow sidewalks and sirens slash through the air 24/7. The evening news reports robberies,  accidents, homicides and a plethora of  calamities too numerous for human emotions to endure.

But if you look at all the people living in cities, whether in their workplace or their office cubicle, what do you see on the partition wall?

You see posters of what they would rather being doing: windsurfing, skiing, sunbathing on a beach in the Caribbean, scuba diving, dancing, mountain climbing, camping, rafting, bicycling and a dozen other activities they would rather be living.

If you’re one of those people wishing you lived a different life or wishing you could live your dreams, then why don’t you go after it?

Why not live your poster instead of wishing you were windsurfing across Lake Tahoe or sunning on the beach in Hawaii?

Did you ever wonder how those people you see traveling around the world with a backpack or bicycle, or climbing mountains or taking a winter off to go ski bumming do it?

They defeat the tyranny of resistance.

Henry David Thoreau said, “The mass of men and women live lives of quiet desperation”.

In 2014 America, anyone at any station in life, at any age, can renew his or her life by choice, by intention and by action. Such individuals learn how to defeat the “tyranny of resistance.”

First of all, what constitutes this modern day tyranny that locks people into cubicle prisons in cities or into humdrum jobs that provide zero meaning?

Such persons yield to an inner resistance to transform themselves because they feel afraid, don’t know how to break their cubicle-bonds and, often times, none of their office mates know any better. It’s easier to be safe with the constancy and comfort of a paycheck and friends.

Do you remember the TV sitcom “King of Queens” with the fat boy Kevin James and co-star Leah Remini, who also got fat in the series, staged in New York City?  They never showed any happiness, but mostly conflict. Their  jobs: meaningless! They didn’t know how to escape their relationship or their jobs.

If you live such a scenario, how can you avoid a lifetime of regrets?

• Find your gift of what turns you on to life.  Discover your talent, your ability, your genius and your expertise. You can find it by examining what you do in your spare time. Pursue it, love it and live it.

• Practice self-awareness.  Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living”. Instead of going through the motions, create your own wave and ride it.

• Incorporate your independent will as a “course correction” on your way to your life’s destination. As Jack London said, “You can’t wait for inspiration to change your life; you have to go after it with a club.”

• Discover your True North in the scheme of your life.  That’s your soul’s true knowing and what you desire most about your life. It’s your deepest truth.

Finally, you must engage your physical, emotional, mental and spiritual well-being.

Exercise daily to blow off excess energy in the body to release your mind to express itself.  Eat healthy foods to maintain a lean frame.  That, in turn, allows you  emotional balance that originates with your relationship with friends, families and co-workers.  For your mental well-being, read books, take classes and express yourself through journaling, painting, sculpting or other art forms.  Finally, feed your spiritual being via inspirational books, church or nature, and the peace you find from a walk down a tree-lined path.

You will find the tyranny of resistance fades as you walk or gallop toward your happiness in work, play and friends. You won’t wish for what you see in the poster on your cubicle wall, you will live it for real.

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