Celebrating life is the topic of my blog post today on this #TalkingTuesday. I would like to incorporate this topic which seems more like a generalization of a pep talk with a bit of a business lesson.
As humans, the majority of us go through life never giving a second thought to our mortality. We live as if there will always be a tomorrow yet, nobody has ever or will ever escape the inevitable. Yes some people age and they know there time is coming. Then there are the people suffering with some form of an illness and they too know their days are numbered but it is not either one of these groups I wish to discuss. I want to discuss the majority of people who for a lack of better terminology are regular everyday people walking this earth thinking that they have a world of time being afforded to them. People with no regard for time. These people are the ones I want to focus on and I want to tell them that they need to slow down and actually celebrate life on a daily basis. I want these people to know that each morning when their eyes open, they are amongst the luckiest people in the world because they were given a brand new day to celebrate life.
I too used to be amongst this group of people who did not give any thought to the amount of time I may or may not have left on this earth. I was just living life as we all do, making plans, procrastinating with just about everything that was put in front of me and I also was living as if I was invincible. After all, who walks around worried about the end? Then, that day came into my life, a day that carried a diagnosis of stage 3 thyroid cancer. It still amazes me how you can go one day feeling on top of the world then in the blink of an eye you have to learn a new normal of feeling exhausted all the time due to having your thyroid removed in conjunction with and followed by treatments and medications that make you feel less than human. I am thankful that part of my health is under control but it makes you start questioning your mortality or at least that is what it did to me. I began thinking about my mortality constantly then I tried to set it aside because I did not want to become depressed. And of course, life being the unpredictable mystery that it is, I got side swiped again with the diagnosis of a brain tumor. That too was followed by surgery and an ongoing healing process. Needless to say, my mortality is constantly at the forefront of my mind however, I realized that rather than be depressed over something I have virtually no control over, I will consciously choose to celebrate my life while I am still lucky to have one.
Now, even though I live constantly aware of how real, how close and how in your face the end truly is, I choose to celebrate life and this is what has made me hyper focus on happiness. I started asking myself constant questions and amongst those questions, there are a few that constantly creep up namely, why do we choose to make others happy when it brings us misery? Why do we work ourselves almost to death so that sometime in the far future we can hopefully enjoy a few years of life while not taking into account the decades of life that just passed us by? Up to and including today, I am yet to come up with an answer to any of these questions and the reason why I cannot come up with an answer to these questions is because there is no answer. We are programmed to believe that we need to make every one happy and comfortable at our expense. We are programmed to believe that if we put ourselves first then we are selfish and self serving. We are programmed incorrectly and must change it before we no longer have the opportunity.
I used to be a massive people pleaser at my own expense. I used to give whatever I had even if it left me with nothing. I used to cry myself to sleep if someone hurt my feelings. Then I had my epiphany. I stopped it all. I now do what I want to do, when I want to do it and how I want to do it. People get mad at me often but I shrug it away. I have pushed away from almost all negative people and only deal with them when I am in the mood. I am not completely void of negativity but it is a work in progress and with each conscious choice I make to celebrate life, I feel exponentially happier.
What I want to say to you is when you choose to live celebrating life, many things begin to fall into place. It is not realistic to think that you can ever possibly live 100% in celebratory mode but you can live perfectly content with whatever percentage of celebration you have as long as you make the conscious decision to do so. If you love someone then tell them. If someone hurt you then tell them so that burden does not weigh you down. If you want to dance in the rain then do it. You are here for a reason. Celebrate life and enjoy every bit of happiness it brings you. There will be days that will try your every emotion but if you live your life celebrating and appreciating all your blessings then the trying days will disappear easily without causing lasting pain or scars.
This premise crosses over into your business life too. There are so many people out there who are miserable and they want to drag you with them. When building and growing your business, you have to rid your work environment and rid your client list of anyone who is miserable. There are way too many people in this world for you to think that you have to keep your miserable employee or your miserable client or an account that drains the life out of you. Get rid of them and just keep the ones that bring you happiness. Maybe you will lose money or maybe you will make even more money but the point is to fill your circle with the people and accounts that bring you happiness. The more happiness you surround yourself with, the more happiness your life will have. Life is so short and none of us know when our checkout date is so do whatever it takes to bring however much time you have left the happiness you deserve by celebrating life and the blessings it brings you.
I once read something along the lines that said the house you complained was too small is a dream home for a homeless family. The job you complain about is a dream job for the unemployed. The life you take for granted is the life the dying dream of having once again. Life is a gift and it should be celebrated. When you leave your house in the morning, there is no guarantee of your return. Do not put off telling people that you love them. Do not put off ridding your life of negativity. Do not ever take for granted that time is on your side.
Yesterday I recommended a book called The Book of Joy and I want to once again suggest you read it. If you were unable to borrow a copy, here is a link to get your own copy from Amazon >> https://amzn.to/2sJZjDx
If you choose to shop in Amazon, I would greatly appreciate it if you could use the link I have provided. As an Amazon Affiliate, it is possible I can earn a bonus and therefore continue to provide continued content we all enjoy. Thank you in advance!
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