Its as if its taken until now to work out what I want to do with my life and I’m 38 Years old. Am I a slow learner or am I lucky to have found something that I’m deeply passionate about when many people drift through life doing work that doesn’t fulfil them only to get to the end and say, oh, is that it?
You could say I’ve been on a journey. You see I was suckered into the cultural narrative that happiness lay in a high status, high paying job with a big house and a fancy car. So when I left university and moved to the bright lights of London, I chased those things. But there was a problem. I was doing work that I hated, I had zero motivation and yet I kept chasing the golden carrot, albeit half heartedly.
It wasn’t until I set up my recruitment business in Sydney that I tasted moderate material success for a period of time. I bought the nice car and I went on holidays to the Maldives but something was missing. My work was placing people into jobs in the insurance industry and whilst I could do it and I was making more money than I’d ever made, you could say it wasn’t exactly setting my soul on fire.
Maybe I could have stuck at it, but maybe to my detriment, I’ve always been a searcher, a question asker and I’m talking about the big questions. I mean, what the hell are we all doing here? Was I born to spend my career placing people into insurance jobs? Is that the best way I could spend my short period of time on this planet?
Here we are on planet earth, orbiting the sun at 66,486 miles per hour, floating in a vast universe of nothingness among billions and billions of other planets and galaxies. And somehow the brain of the human being has evolved in such a way to give us an experience of life like no other. We have separated ourselves from the animal kingdom that we were once part of. With our intellect we have created a whole new world, we have built things, we’ve redefined our living environment, we’ve created commerce and industry, we’ve created a whole new reality, a new way to play the game of life, that no other living creature shares. We’ve built it and then made up the rules for how you’re supposed to play the game.
It’s the concept of this man made reality that really lights my fire and gets me excited. Why do we have to accept things the way they are? Why can’t we change the rules? Why can’t we explore the nature of the human experience? Why can’t we learn how our minds work so that we can take control of our experience? Why is there so much pain, suffering, hatred, greed, exploitation, negligence and violence as a result of human behaviour? Why can’t we change for the better?
Over the last 20 years, I’ve privately been exploring and contemplating these things and the place that these explorations always leads me back to is: The Mind!
If you think about it, the mind is the foundation of all human experience. As much as you might think you are, you’re not experiencing actual reality. You are experiencing your own made up interpretation of reality based on a complex combination of your genetics, your past experiences, your beliefs, your thoughts, your emotions and your values which all just boil back to neural pathways in your brain. Neuro transmitters firing together to create all those things. Shut those off and your experience of life ceases to exist.
So if its our brains and minds that create our reality, wouldn’t it make sense to at least have a vague idea of how they work so that we can actually have some influence over our experience, rather than just letting whatever default settings that are in place run the show?
Perhaps I wouldn’t be so passionate about this if everybody handled their emotions effectively, if there was peace in the world, if nobody was unfulfilled. But it baffles me that we live more comfortably than ever before in the history of mankind and yet we are experiencing higher rates of stress, anxiety and depression in the western world than ever before. 25% of 18 to 25 year olds are now experiencing depression. The use of antidepressants has gone up 500% over the past 20 years and even with all the pills being popped, depression still continues to rise. Is anyone else wondering what the f*#k is going on?
So I guess that brings me back to where I started. What is the meaning of life and why do we seem to be struggling? Well, if you do the research you will find that the people who are getting the greatest fulfilment out of life aren’t the ones with the biggest house and nicest car, like you might be led to believe. Its the ones who are pursuing the things that they are passionate about, the ones who are stoking the flames of their soul rather than throwing a damp cloth over them. But more than that, the things they are doing are impacting other people in a positive way. They aren’t out for personal gain, they are out to be of service to others. And, ironically, the money will probably come off the back of adding massive value to other peoples lives, but that is never the objective. The objective is living with a purpose, its having a cause, a craft, a meaning that moves the buck forward for themselves and for others. So for you, your meaning is your choice, its different for all of us, but choose the thing that you would do because you love it and you’d do it whether you got paid or not. And find a way to channel that passion, that fire, that craft in a way that benefits others.
For me, its taken me until now to get it, everything up until this point has been learning. There will of course continue to be learning, that never stops. But this business, this mission is my turning point, this is where I start really living my meaning in service to others rather than just day dreaming about it. Unlike my past businesses, I’m not going into this one purely to make money. Sure, I still want to make enough to feed my family and go on holidays, but this is bigger than that. This is about my passion, this is about becoming a true master of the mind, this is about getting people to wake up, this is about raising the level of human consciousness so that humanity can prosper now and in the future.
You may be thinking, what the hell has Chris been smoking, he’s lost his marbles? You may be perfectly happy in your own life and that is awesome. I’m not trying to prescribe anything, this is my view and my experience that I’m putting out there. To some it may make no sense, to others it may sound stupid, but my hope is, there will be people who get it, who will be inspired to take action and we can all grow and evolve together.
So, if you ever have that faint nagging voice inside your head saying maybe there’s more to life, but you brush it aside because you’ve got a mortgage and bills to pay, then my intention is to inspire you to start listening to that voice. Because if you feel you’ve got more to give, that you’re missing out on living the fullness that life has to offer, then I’m here to say that change is a choice. I’m not saying its easy, but if nothing else, I want this business and the life I’m now living to serve as a test case. I want to be a living example of what I’m preaching. I don’t just want to be sharing the theories, I want to be demonstrating the benefits.
Right now is such an exciting time to be alive. The advances in technology are growing exponentially and our world is evolving at hyper speed. But we aren’t without our problems. Global warming is now at a critical level. Obesity, diabetes, depression and other lifestyle diseases are epidemics.
I believe we are at a tipping point, a fork in the road. If we continue with our current level of thinking and behaviour, the whole game could be over for the human race in the not too distant future. Humanity could be a fleeting moment that came and went in the history books of time, destroyed by our own stupidity. Alternatively, we can evolve our level of thinking, our behaviour, our consciousness. We can start playing a new game, where everybody prospers, where we all experience life for what it is, a miracle. I know which game I want to play, but a game is only fun when there’s many players… Are you in?