The Breathing Prosperity blog

You ARE, you know…

You realize that, right?

There is a bizarre human tendency I’ve been becoming more and more aware of lately, kind of like there’s a big secret we all keep and don’t even acknowledge to ourselves.

If one were to look from, say, outer space, at the way we humans live and interact and deal with both life and death, I’ll bet it would look very odd indeed. Picture it:

We all walk around knowing that humans, as individuals, die. We watch the cycle of life play out in myriad ways all around us every day and each moment: from humans to other animals to plant life even to the life cycle of stars if we’re curious about the Universe around us. We see babies born and we watch them grow (playing a little Louis Armstrong in my head…), and conversely we experience the death of family pets or animals we may accidentally run over, for instance. As we grow older, we see that people around us die. More and more as we grow through life, we witness people dying around us, and yet, somehow, most of us manage to believe that it won’t happen to us, or at least not for such a very long time that we needn’t worry about it.

Depending upon where we live, and on what our cultural and religious and societal influences are, we may experience death as a very commonplace phenomenon (such as in war-torn countries) or even as a reward (such as in certain religious sects). Even so, it is the rare individual who contemplates their own death, and often such individuals are considered morbid or perhaps even mentally ill. In typical ‘western’ countries, someone who is challenged with life-threatening pain and illness and wants to end their suffering is often thought of as wrong. In many ‘eastern’ and more esoteric belief systems death is acknowledged as a part of life, but even then many do not face that inevitability fully when it comes to themselves.

This article is meant not to debate nor even discuss the morals or righteousness of any particular way of thinking, except in the very largest sense, as I think we – mankind – are doing ourselves a great disfavour. By denying our own natural life cycle, by being so afraid our of own ends that we won’t even consciously face the possibility, we live like a race of crazy creatures with our proverbial heads in the sand. Even when faced with grave evidence (no pun intended) of our inevitable demise – at least in this form – such as the death of a parent or someone else very close to us, we somehow manage to separate ourselves from the knowledge that we, too, shall face such an end. Because, by nature, we don’t KNOW what lies afterwards (if anything), we feel abject fear at the prospect.

I submit that we are missing the passion and ‘now’-ness available to us as our birthright. Whether we employ any religious or spiritual beliefs or not, were we as a race to accept, consciously and with open hearts and minds, that death is a natural part of our own cycles, we would be impelled to enjoy our moments more. If we all knew and acknowledged as a matter of course that our time here is limited, I suspect we’d be more conscious, and would make more of our lives. There would be no settling, no long tedious days, no years spent doing things we hate or making others’ lives and joys more important than our own (unless we wanted to!). We would all be more creative, more joyous and more understanding, because we would behave in a more authentic manner.

Here is an analogy: Imagine, if you will, that you’ve been able to book an exciting, very exclusive and expensive 12-hour journey which is very precious to you. Imagine that on this journey you will be able to spend a limited period with people you adore and then your time will be up. Also, there will be valued opportunities for seeing the most beautiful sights your eyes can behold, and to experience fulfilling activities that have deep meaning for you. Because your time will be extremely limited and because you’ve paid a very large amount of money for this experience, you will want to stay awake and drink in every moment, to enjoy each second with all your senses, and ensure you get the most value out of it. You wouldn’t fall asleep, and you certainly would not take anything for granted.

Now, surely the parallel above to our lives here on earth is very obvious. Is it because our lives seem long that they are treated as less precious? Even our kids become commonplace at some point, don’t they? When we first have a new child, it seems like such an incredible miracle. We watch our babies as they sleep at night and gaze in awe at the little person we’re blessed to care for. Then, somehow we end up yelling at our cranky kids in the grocery store and forgetting entirely that we wanted our lives to be about fun, about miracles, about enjoying every precious moment. Of course, overall, these grumpy moments do not speak of how deeply we love our children and are just momentary reactions, but could there be a different, more satisfying and fulfilling way to BE human?

Perhaps our lives do seem too ‘long’ for us to feel open ecstasy each day, each moment. Is it possible or even healthy to do so? I don’t know. I’m not sure. What I DO believe, what I’m more convinced of every day, is that we would live very differently if we all spoke our secret – if we told our kids that their lives are limited but their possibilities are not – ‘You will see that we all die, and your day will come and you never know when. Do what you love, feed and feel your passion, go and explore your world and give to it your best, most magnificent self, every day.’

Let’s embrace the life force that flows in us, while it still flows. This does not have to be a depressing or morbid thought. If our beautiful life cycle was fully acknowledged as a part of our heritage and destiny, I believe our lives and the legacies we leave, the connections we forge and the experiences we’d create, would all be very much richer. We would revere the elderly as we once did, instead of making old age somehow mean irrelevance. We would find more meaning in relationships and we would fight less, if at all. If it is true that it is human nature to place value on things that are limited or will be taken from us, then isn’t our LIFE the most precious and valuable thing of all?

As I was driving to the gym this morning and during my swimming I kept thinking about an article I wrote a few months ago. LaKeitha had written an article called Defining Prosperity for Myself and I had written a counter-article called Defining Prosperity: Is that Really Prosperity or Just Plain Lazy?! I remember as I wrote the article how truly upset I felt at LaKeitha – at the mentality I thought at the time – the wanting just enough to be okay attitude. My grandmother used to say ‘If you aim for the sky, you may fall on a tree. You aim for the tree you may fall on the hedge;but if you aim for the ground you don’t have anywhere to fall.’ But as I read the article it hit me again that I tell people I want to be on the Forbes 400 list – the 400 richest Americans list – and I have yet to hear one person say REALLY ME TOO!!  (Shauna excluded – she’s Canadian.)

So I’m curious why a lot of people never strive for more money than enough to be okay?…Why do more people not want to be the richest person in the world? So many just living till the next paycheck in quiet desperation, just fitting in, not making too much so people think they are snobs and not too little so they think they are trash.

I have been rich and been poor, and at the end of the day I will always choose rich. I have to admit there was a point when I didn’t want 1 billion dollars – there was a point when I just wanted to be okay – when I wanted to fit in and blend in with the crowd, when everyone’s approval mattered, when I thought of myself as so small that I only deserved enough money to be OKAY. When I didn’t believe it was possible for me to have more, or be more, or do more. No, the shift didn’t happen overnight and for a long while I would be afraid to say I want to be on the Forbes 400 list or people would look at me funny thinking who the hell is she to want more than we do?…who the hell is she to have more than we do?…

Till one day I felt the fact that I wanted this so deep inside me – that I deserved this – that I was good enough to have it. My uncle for as long as I’ve known him always will talk about his jet that he’s going to own. Internally I’d laugh at him and go YEAH RIGHT!!  But he never cared he just kept on saying I’m going to own my jet. For a long time I didn’t believe it was possible for him either till one day I said wow – you know my uncle is going to own a jet. Nothing is impossible!

I’ve even broken up with a guy because he thought it was okay to be poor – after all his parents were poor and they were happy and rich people have kids who don’t even like them he said. When I told him about my Bentley dreams he said ‘Can’t you have a better dream than that? So many things you could want in the world – peace, happiness, love, but you talk about money and your Bentley.’ He would tell me that he was my biggest supporter, yet he could not support me in my goal to make it to the Forbes 400 list. At that point I knew we were over. If he wanted to stay poor he would be doing it without ME!

So what is keeping you only wanting and asking the Universe for ‘okay’ money? What are you afraid of? Are you afraid you will fail? Are you afraid you might have to give up friendships or relationships? Are you afraid people will think you don’t deserve it? Are you afraid you might have to stand out? Do you believe it’s not possible for YOU? What is holding you back from reaching for the sky?