Hi friend,
Three quick stories for you to mull over on this glorious sunny weekend.
Remember that, one day, you'll look back on right now and say:
"Those were the good ol' days"
But right now IS the past to your future self.
In other words.
The good old days are right now.
You'll forget it by tomorrow.
We all do.
Below are three short stories that might make you think in different ways about the NOW.
Describing external milestones, internal narratives and indecision to live.
In all three stories, notice how the past and future damage the experience.
Story one: Millionaire milestones.
(External distractions)
- Imagine two young boys that had the same goal of becoming a millionaire by the time they’re 60. They make a pact to meet at 60 and compare their lives.
- Boy One races towards his 20s and 30s with gusto, sacrificing everything for money: his sleep, his health, his relationships... But he hits his goal.
- He retires at 45 rich but rinsed.
- Boy Two lives his life more slowly, he spends more time with loved ones, cares for his health and invests in himself, slowing down in his goal in his 50s.
- When he gets to 60, he's fallen quite short of his millionaire target.
- When the boys meet, now as men, they compare their lives.
- They trade stories, tales and even bank balances.
- One's richer, but who's had the richer life?
- When these men think about it, they realise it wasn't the million they wanted, it was the life that came with it.
- The external goal was supposed to come with the internal reward.
- The destination wasn't the goal, it was the journey.
- Man One reached 'the end goal' but felt empty, alone and without purpose.
- Man Two realised he’d spent so much time enjoying the journey that the destination had become less important than he once thought.
Story two: Narrative nuisance.
- Imagine two foreign tourists have paid thousands of pounds to ride the Orient Express.
- Neither speaks English, so when they board they’re each given a headset.
- The headset is supposed to narrate the journey – the history of the train, the bridges, the mountains, the wildlife.
- A few minutes into the trip, one man’s headset starts crackling.
- It cuts in and out. He’s furious.
- He’s spent a fortune for this trip and they’ve given him faulty equipment. And what makes it even worse is the passenger opposite him.
- Every now and then, when the headset crackles back into life, he sees this man gazing out of the window smiling.
- "Just my luck, I've got the duff headset" he thinks.
- So while they’re travelling through beautiful valleys, watching the sunset and enjoying incredible food, he’s writing a complaint on his phone.
- By the time they arrive, he’s rehearsed the whole thing.
- He’s going to tell the company exactly what he thinks.
- When the train pulls in, he's first off and storms to the desk, broken headset in hand.
- The desk clerk says something in English (which he doesn't speak!) and points him towards another desk.
- And standing at that desk is this other foreign passenger.
- "Just my luck again" he grumbles as he stands behind him in the queue.
- This desk clerk is clearly the one who can speak their tongue, and he watches as the clerk takes the other man's headset and asks how the journey was.
- The lucky passenger replies:
- ‘Wonderful. Although it’s a shame the headset didn’t work again.’
- The desk clerk proceeds to sigh, give him a card and apologise. Then turns to our angry customer and says 'ahh - you too I presume?'
- Before he's remembered how to start his complaint, this 'unlucky' passenger is given a card and told 'We're so sorry, we're not sure what's wrong with the signal, but please take this - and if you want to ride again, you can get 50% off.'
- Before he knows it, still stunned, he's thanked the kind desk clerk and is walking on by, without even having delivered his complaint.
- He hasn't long to think though: The other passenger in front has turned back to him with a smirk
- 'Shame about the headset isn't it' he says. 'But still, with a view and meal like that - how can you care about the name of a bridge?
- But the answer is that man cared. Or at least he thought he did.
- Whilst he had objectively experienced an amazing train ride, he'd let his mind take over.
- An internal monologue had ruined his whole experience.
- It wasn't the headset in his ears.
- It was the mind between them.
We're all on a journey.
We can't race for the destination.
And we must try to keep positive along the way.
Story three: Life for rent.
(Indecision)
- He moved from a house into a temporary rental flat. I remember walking round the place briefly after he'd moved in.
- He points at the curtains and the sofa and says they're disgusting.
- But he's not planning to be there long, so he doesn't do anything about them - even though I point out the curtains are pretty easy and cheap to change... at the least.
- But it was only for a few weeks.
- Then months.
- Then longer.
- The rental continued to stay the same. No decorations, no changes, not a home.
- It wasn't a problem of money, or time.
- And it certainly wasn't because he liked it as it was.
- But it meant a hard conversation.
"I'm living here now. This is where I will be for a while. It may not be where I want to be, but I'm here. How can I make the best of it?"
- He ended up living there for 9 years.
- I remember when seeing his new place - commenting how nice it was.
- He said "Ahh man, I really hated that sofa, i should have just got scrapped it on day one".
It might be cliche, but we can't treat our life like we're living in a rental. We don't know how long any of our circumstances or decisions will last: A week or 9 years.
But the problems are always ours.
We have to live with those curtains, the sofa, the faulty light.
If we delay our hard decisions and postpone self-care - we assume that it will sort itself out later.
It won't.
And the reward for doing it isn't always obvious.
We're not always working towards 'living in a better flat'
But often moving 'away from living in a bad flat'
It's also funny how, for all three stories, they're not about the journey, the headset, the curtains - but about acknowledging where we are right now.
- Not where you hope to be
- Not where you used to be
But right here, right now.
In the good ol' days.
Hope you found these helpful.
If you fancy putting some of these thoughts into practice, I'd love to see you at my first in-person workshop.
It'll be at the stunning Ardinger Rooms in Clapham Junction on Tue, June 9.
Check your calendar and secure your place here.
Cheers
Live by design, not default.
James - humans BEING
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