The stuff your life is made of

It’s midweek, on a Wednesday afternoon.

A glorious day at the start of the month. You’re feeling pretty good about yourself and got everything under control.

You receive an email from your old boss, inviting you to work on a promising project that you started together a while back.

One of your tweets is trending! You’re getting dozens of notifications, and you feel the need to jump into the conversation.

Your significant other suggests spending a few hours on the beach. You’ve been spending way too much time at the office, and he misses you.

The long-awaited sequel to your favourite movie of all time just dropped, and you just have to get the premier tickets before they run out.

Your daughter bursts into your home office and won’t leave until you pet her cat and play UNO with her!

It’s tax season, and you must get your financials in order. Something you’ve been avoiding and postponing all year!!

Some new deals came through. You’re excited as you’ve been working on them for what seems to be forever. Now, along with your team, you have some new deadlines to fulfil.

The phone rings. You get the devastating news of a distant family member passing away, and your mom says you need to be at the funeral next week.

You check your email and find a request for an interview from the #1 podcast in your industry. They need your confirmation within the hour.

It’s Thursday evening two weeks later. The more you do, the more your to-do list expands and grows. You feel drained and in need of some time off to recover and recharge.

If you really break it down, life is a collection of demands on your time.

Then you die

You have no idea when.

Worldwide, the average life expectancy at birth is 69 years.

That’s 828 months, 3,598 Weeks, 25,185 Days, 6,044,240 hours or 36,266,396 minutes, forever passing no matter who you are, or what you plan to do with your life.

You can’t stop life, can’t slow it down, and you can’t hold on to it. But you can master it.

Let go

Life doesn’t ask for permission.

Life just happens. Things take place mostly with complete disregard to your well thought out plans and your new year resolution to “once and for all, take charge of your life and become the master of your destiny.”

However, life is made up of things you love, things you hate, and things you just have to deal with regardless of how you feel.

Let’s say you

• love playing the guitar, working on a passion project, or spending time with friends travelling the world.
• hate going to the dentist for a regular check-up, and avoid long and meaningless meetings like they are the plague.
• can’t be bothered to renew your car insurance, or wait for the plumber to come and fix a leaking pipe.

Surely as someone who’s fully in control of your life, you will choose to do things you love like playing the guitar and travelling with friends, postponing your visit to the dentist, and ignoring renewing your car insurance, right?!

However, life doesn’t care.

The next time your tooth aches while practicing your favourite new tune, you’ll quickly drop your guitar, call and beg the dentist for an early apportionment, then wait in pain for a friend to drive you because your car has no insurance.

So much for being in control!

Like the rest of us, you have the illusion of control that helps you go through life without freaking out.

In reality, deep inside, you know you don’t control shit.

Yes, you are holding that pot and pouring yourself a delicious, perfectly prepared cup of coffee on a morning that couldn’t be more amazing.

You are on top of the world.

What you don’t know is there’s a call finding its way to you to knock you off of your imaginary throne of control and turn this day to one from hell.

The time has come to let the illusion go, renounce the throne, and seek your forefathers’ treasure.

Embrace your true purpose, claim your birthright, and take your place at the helm.

An excerpt from The Dark Art of Mastering Your Life book.