We’re not done until we’re dead.
Done with what?
Our life’s work.
What is our life’s work?
What we spend our time doing.
Time, the one thing we can’t get back regardless of how rich or poor we are.
It is normal to spend the majority of one’s life just trying to survive as long as possible.
Human, animal, plant…survival and replication is the name of the game, the purpose of life.
But things have changed for some people in some parts of the world depending on external factors completely outside of their control that determine whether or not they can devote their waking hours to doing something that has come to be known as…thriving.
Not just surviving, but thriving.
Not just living moment to moment, minute to minute, hour to hour, day to day, week to week, month to month, year to year. But something the privileged say is greater than just going on until we can’t go on anymore.
Something greater than doing what I am capable of doing to live to see another day? Wonderful! I’m in, sign me up, mark me down, I love it, I want it. This means my all my necessities will be provided for me so I can focus completely on thriving right? Right?
No, I am still completely responsible for my own survival. But now, I have to choose to find, cultivate, and expend from within me an entire new being’s worth of focus, energy, effort, determination, and consistency to dedicate my life to something greater? Even though I still have to devote the majority of my waking hours to doing what I am capable of doing to make sure I don’t die homeless, starving, and dehydrated?
Luckily we can choose what to focus on. We can choose how to perceive things. We can choose how to feel. We can choose how to act and what to do.
Not by default though. After all, we would be urinating and defecating where we sit or stand without being potty trained. So we have to learn the theories, concepts, skills, tools, practices, habits, rituals and routines to develop and improve ourselves gradually, over time, patiently into a better more actualized version of ourselves.
How many steps is that? How many choices is that? How many days is that? How many years is that? What is the cost of that? Why is it up to me to do all that? Shouldn’t they be teaching us those things in school? Shouldn’t that be paid training on how to live rather than pay to play?
Luckily we can choose what to focus on. We can choose how to perceive things. We can choose how to feel. We can choose how to act and what to do.
I suppose trying to be a better person is a better use of leisure time than watching tv. But what about people who don’t have leisure time?
That’s out of my control or ability to influence. The best thing I can do is focus on improving myself without negatively impacting others. No harm, no foul. Becoming a better version of myself may even end up having a positive effect on the people around me. That is certainly a good thing. To positively impact the people, places, and things around us.
It would be nice to know why we have to discover this on our own and do it on our own when in America we are forced to spend the first quarter of our lives being educated. Educated in what? For what? Now I have to spend the rest of my life learning and applying knowledge that will actually benefit me pragmatically?
I thought I was done learning. I thought one day I would be done working.
We’re not done until we’re dead.
Done with what?
Our life’s work.
What is our life’s work?
What we spend our time doing.
Anarchy Journal Constitutional 