One of life’s bigger lessons is that in order to live well, it is a good idea to learn to live purposefully. Happiness seems to be correlated with living life on purpose and with purpose. In our misbegotten youth, we could more or less eat, drink, and do whatever we felt like with seemingly very few consequences. We are different now, and our needs and abilities are different. Not better or worse, just different.
This means not only purposeful engagement with others, purposeful eating, and purposeful sleeping, but also purposeful relaxation, which understandably may seem like a contradiction. We only have so much time on earth and, although there are very smart people out there who firmly believe that we can vastly extend that time, so far, humans have not been very successful at that. Our lifespan time limit can give us a sense of urgency, and some of that is not so bad. Having a purpose to get out of bed in the morning knowing that there are others who are counting on you that day is a tremendous boost to one’s sense of purpose and meaning. The other side of the coin is important, too.
All of life is an ongoing out-breath and in-breath. Energy is continually going and then being restored. Relaxation is lovely, and also essential, giving us time to reflect and digest our thoughts and feelings so that we may be better prepared and useful the next day. Overdosing on either is not so great. Too much comfort and lazing about will lead to a shrinking personal world and a decaying body. Too much busyness may exhaust us with equally bad health outcomes while distracting us from the critical learnings all around us.
Some of the most impactful, purposeful people I know are also the most disciplined about downshifting. They plan vacations. They plan into each day the time when they switch off from and disconnect from productivity so they can engage more fully with their relationships. In other words, they have purposeful boundaries. They say yes to a lot, and they also know when to say no. FOMO is in the eye of the beholder: for some, it is about missing out on family time; for others, it is missing out on meditation time, just as much as for some, it may be missing out on a late-night event. All are good; our wisdom is in being able to make those purposeful decisions rather than running on autopilot. Let’s make the most of each day by bringing the person we are, rather than the person we were, and doing right by that person.
Onward and upward,
David
