You will have to overcome your fear of losing things.

Why are we less anxious, less stressed, less angry, less depressed as kids?

You will probably respond with, "I had less responsibilities, less requirements, less structure, more freedom to make mistakes...etc."

The thing is, as kids we aren't really free at all because we are confined to the limitations our parents and surroundings put on us. We go where they go and do what they do. Yet, we act more free?

Because as kids we don't have an attachment to anything.

As we get older though, we get attached to things. External/material things start to consume our life.

You go to work to buy the clothes, the car, the house...you go to work to buy [insert whatever is your fix] that as kids never mattered to you.

Want to know the breaking point of me wanting to be free and moving away from the east coast?

Winter 2015. I was walking to work in Hoboken, NJ. It had snowed a bit the night before, and now it was drizzling in the morning. I looked down and started to get angry that my "nice" work shoes were getting dirty from the slush, and my suit was starting to get wet.

I realized something in that moment though.

I didn't give a fuck about those dumb expensive shoes that I didn't even want to be wearing. I didn't care about that suit that I was pissed off that I had to spend money on in the first place.

I started to have a new lens on life.

What did CJ truly value?!?

I valued time outside. Time in the sun.

Welp...I was failing miserably at that. Living on the east coast, working a desk job for 8-10 hours a day, I didn't see a lick of daylight most days.

I valued testing my mind/body/spirit through exercise and recovery.

Yet, I was half-assing that by going to the gym at the end of the day when I was tired and exhausted. I was giving the most important thing to me... the worst part of me.

I valued teamwork, community, and self-improvement.

But I was drinking/smoking/partying my weekends away, rather than becoming the best version of myself, and surrounding myself with others doing the same thing.

Notice how none of my values above mention anything about money or material items.

That was the "aha!" moment for me.

I was finally free.

Free to go after the things I wanted in life, not the things that others made me feel like I should be going after.

Here is the thing though...it took me 24 years to get to that point because I was afraid to "lose" the things I had accrued. I had an attachment to them. It is almost crazy that I had an attachment to the things that were making me miserable. It is a part of human psychology. We all act in this way.

We stay in the job we hate out of fear of "losing" the salary. We stay in the relationship that is causing us unnecessary stress, out of fear of "losing" companionship and being alone. We buy things we don't need, to impress people we don't care about...out of fear of "losing" our identity and not fitting in.

We are afraid to lose things.

And it causes us to miss out on so much freedom!!!

Because to be the best YOU that you can be...

You must be in control of deciding where the ship is sailing.

You must be the one deciding who you want to be, why you want to be that person, and how you plan to become it.

That is what being free feels like.

So my final question is...

what are you willing to let go of to become that person?!!?

#thriveon

CJ

p.s. today I am grateful that it only took me 24 years to come to the realization I talk about above. Most people will sadly go their entire lifetimes without fully realizing how attached they are to things that don't matter at all.