No shortcuts.

There are no shortcuts to anyplace worth going. 

Beverly Sills

The path to living a life of purpose and meaning often seems long and difficult. Many of us can see and feel the truth that is in our hearts, but the reality of our present situation obscures that truth and prevents us from fully enjoying it. We have this perpetual question that hangs out in our heads,  lingering in our life, waiting to for the right answer.

But there is no answer.

Your practice, call it spiritual practice, is to resolve this question in your life.

Can you get comfortable sitting with a question for which there is no answer?

How long are you willing to work on resolving this question in your heart and mind?

How hard will you work?

How much are you willing to sacrifice?

As with many things in life, your effort creates value. The more effort you put into your practice, the more meaning and purpose you will find. Mastery does not come easy, there are no shortcuts to a life of purpose and meaning. There is no hack, no app, no trick. Just effort.

If you want to live a life of purpose and meaning, you're going to have to do the work. Not work for work's sake, but the work of being more human and resolving the question of how to do that in your own life.

Forging the trail.

We can give people our respect. We can show them unconditional love and kindness. We can be patient and understanding. We can be generous and lend them a hand. We can give them a break, offer them a second chance and let them start over.

Others deserve this. It's something that we can give.

But it's often not enough. Ultimately, it's not something we can give.

You must do the work, the inner work of recognizing your own self-worth and potential. You need to do it for yourself.

You have to do the hard labor of stopping, looking within and resolving the tension in your own heart and mind. You need to look through your own self-deception and confusion.

Others can help us on this journey. They can point the way, offer support and guidance. But we must do the work ourselves.

We must forge the trail through the landscape of our lives.

FOMO.

Fear of missing out.

You might have heard this acronym being passed around lately. Fear of missing out can take many forms. It can relate to connections, recognition, accomplishments or any other form of worth and belonging. There is a very special form of FOMO that our culture tends to breed:

The fear of not doing something important or creating something meaningful. 

We are told to live our best life, to contribute something meaningful to the world. We all aspire to live a life of purpose and for our work to have an impact. However, most of us feel that what we are doing isn't good enough. We should be doing something more, we should be doing something better. We should be making more of an impact, changing the world in more meaningful ways.

This fear of missing out is based on a projected sense of self. A better version of you, Greg 2.0. The ideal you that lives a life of great meaning and purpose.

This fear really points to a deep conviction of unworthiness and a lack of perceived value or meaning. We are looking for confirmation or validation from others about our worth. Fundamentally, if we cannot recognize our own value and worth then no matter how much praise or acknowledgement others give us, it doesn't penetrate to our heart.

The fear of missing out confirms this sense of shame and inauthenticity. I have to do this thing in order to prove that I am worth it, that I belong and that I am important.

Follow the fear. The fear is in you, it is not out there in the world. It is in your own heart and in your own mind.

Learn to sit with that fear. Learn to extend your kindness and patience to it. As you learn to sit with fear, it will reveal its hidden layers- your self-contempt, insecurity and shame.

Learn to sit with these too. Extend your love and kindness to all of your shadows.

Your shadow follows you. But you are not your shadow.

As we continue to move through various layers of self-awareness, we eventually end up in completely open, transparent awareness- a state of equanimity and complete self-acceptance. When we discover this deep sense of self-acceptance, we simultaneously recognize our value and our worth. Appreciating our own value, we can recognize the value and worth of others. We no longer harbor any fear of missing out, because we are not incomplete. We are fulfilled, just as we are.

Knowing is not enough.

A treasure buried under the earth.
Honey encassed in a beehive.
A healing medicine.

If you don't know these exist, they are of no benefit to you. If you know they exist, but sit back and do nothing, they are also of no value to you.

You must dig out the treasure. You must carefully extract the honey. You must take the medicine.

Knowing is not enough. It's a start, but you need to act and you need to put in the effort. 

Effort is what makes the treasure useful. Effort is what allows you to enjoy the honey. Effort is what eliminates your pain and sorrow. 

Questioning ourselves.

We often question ourselves, our worth and our value.

Are we good enough?  Are we worth it?  Can we really do this? 

Questioning our value is pretty common.   Why don't we ever question our fear and uncertainty?

Is it worth it to be angry?  Is it worth it to be jealous of others achievements? 

What do we get out of this worry and anxiousness?

What do we get out of feeling bad for ourselves?

We over invest in our thoughts and feelings, which are like clouds drifting through the sky.
We under invest in our potential, which is like the spacious sky.

A diamond in the rough.

Your sitting there, unrecognized, wondering if you have any value.  What is your purpose?  What is the meaning of your existence?

The problem with being a diamond in the rough seems to be that you are waiting for others to recognize you.  You are waiting for confirmation and approval.  Those are selfish traits cloaked in fear and apprehension, but those are not the problem.

The problem is that you are a diamond in the rough and not even you recognize your value.  You don't trust in it.  Your not confident about your own nature, so you spend all your time running about trying to get confirmation and approval. 

Once you can truly recognize and abide in your diamond-like nature, you have no choice but to share it with others.

It's your turn.

[Thanks Seth].

I'm busy.

That seems to be the status update of our day. 

Busy- finishing up a project at work, working overtime.
Busy- with the kids, with the family, with friends.
Busy- with errands, events, and emotional interactions.
Busy- searching, shopping and seeking solace. 

Strange isn't it, how much of your day are you 'busy' trying to create something enjoyable?  Or fun?

Our effort to stay busy is a pretty new cultural invention.  Our grandfathers used to work long hours and did harder work, but did they really describe their weekend and their life as busy?

'Busy' might be the new comfortable, even though we don't admit that we like being busy, more and more often we don't like when we are not busy.  When we are not busy, we feel uncomfortable, like we are wasting our time or that our life doesn't have value.  So we stay busy, because it makes us feel important.  It makes us feel like we are doing something, maybe even accomplishing something. 

But in our efforts to stay busy, we miss a lot of opportunity.  We miss taking the chance on new interactions, we miss doing something important, we miss making a difference in someone's life. We might like the feeling of being busy, but don't make the mistake of being busy when you could be doing something valuable.  

The only way out of this hot mess we call 'busy' is to contemplate our own impermanence.   When we realize that our life is short and death is quickly approaching, you automatically start to do what is important because you know you don't have any time to waste.

New status update to how was your weekend: It was a gift.  My life is quickly passing before my eyes and I chose to do what was the most important, I shared it. 

I shared it in my work, even though they were long days.
I shared it with my family, friends and loved ones.
I shared it on my way to do errands, at events and with those I interacted with.
I shared with myself, in a moment of solace and peaceful enjoyment. 

It was a gift, and I hope yours was a gift too. 

Embodied.

I see a lot of weary and disheartened people.
I see a lot of disembodied people.

More than anything, I think people are looking for a sense of authentic presence in their lives.  They want to feel genuine, to feel that their life is full of meaning and purpose.

They want to be embodied.

But to be embodied, you need to know where you stand.  To trust your ground.

You need to know your values, to have integrity in what you do and dignity in who you are.

You need to have confidence, be brave enough to push past your fear and face your uncertainty.

You need to see through your faults and failures, drawing out the lessons and carrying on the wisdom.

You need to be willing to be vulnerable, to care without being callous and to give without expectation.

To be embodied is to embrace the qualities in you, to see the illusory nature of everything you are, were or will be, but to see that potentiality despite the illusions.

Its all right there, embrace it.