Religion – Universe, God, Allah, Buddah, Jehovah?
Let me tell you something I’ve been thinking about.
Capitulating.
Dreaming.
It wakes me up at night and Sharny is patient enough to hear it but I’m sick of telling her because she already believes it. She lives it. She’s living proof of it.
Here it is.
You know how people tell you there is a universe that brings you stuff?
I’ve tried it. I’ve sat there, listened to the tapes, gone to the imaginary person seminars and the confusing book deals. I’ve imagined good things, I’ve prayed, I’ve dreamed, I’ve written them down, I’ve said them aloud and I’ve told my wife, my kids and complete strangers.
Did any of them come true?
No.
Everything I dreamt of was something I didn’t know how to get. Something I wished would happen TO me or FOR me so I could look better or be better. And these things that happen to me or for me, did they work, did they MANIFEST?
Categorically no.
If it were true, we would all be sitting under a big old oak tree, ohming for some shit we want. Maybe that’s why so many people love cooking. Dream up some aesthetically pleasing feast, put the ingredients in the oven and about an hour later, my “rockets of desire” will come back to me in a big old delicious steak pie, just like I imagined it from the picture I burned into my mind.
I used to think that was how life worked. You would just put the ingredients together, and burn a picture of what you want into your mind and like an oven, it would magically appear in front of me.
It kind of does work like that, except for one major thing that is left out.
Labour… Toil… Work… Even with baking a pie, there is work. The baker does the least of it. What about the hours of toil that went into farming the ingredients, the years of design that went into the creation of the oven, the rest of the ingredients, the dish I put it in, the cutlery and crockery I eat it off? The dishwasher that cleans it – someone had to design it, someone had to build it, someone had to unload it off the truck and someone had to install it for me. Labour. Work.
Even something as simple as a pie costs thousands of man hours of labour. But not mine. Because the labour has been compensated for by money. Money that gets divided up and spent by everyone else. But that’s an argument for someone else, the point is that there has been a transfer of cash for the labour.
Now here’s the funny thing – nowhere in the realm of universe, or universal generosity, do you get to make a pie on someone else’s dime. The only time that this magical ‘universe will bring me everything’ pipe dream works, is if you build the oven with your bare hands. If you farm the grain and the cattle. Because there is no such thing as currency in the ‘universe’ there is no equitable transfer of labour for goods. It’s like dreaming that a bank can just keep giving you money – if you dream about it hard enough.
When it comes to the universe (or god, buddah, allah, or whomever you pray to) – there is no leverage. Leverage makes people rich but unfulfilled. We train some of the wealthiest people in the world, and they are all brilliant at leveraging other people’s time and labour for financial gain, but they will never find a point where they can rest and relax. They can never rest – they are perpetually unsatisfied.
For years I spent time getting rich – stupid rich. I spent everything I earned every week so that I would be motivated to do it again on the Monday. It was easy. It IS easy to make money. It is even easier to spend it. It is hardest to keep it. But chasing the dollar is like a carrot to the donkey. Once the donkey eats the carrot, he wants another. I was a donkey.
Then one day I went out to a farm and worked with working class men. I was amazed that they had very little money, very few possession; but were so content. I didn’t understand it. Surely they would want a nicer car, a better house or a holiday?
But these men weren’t sad. They weren’t depressed. They were more satisfied and fulfilled than any one of the big company men I kicked around with. They were much happier than I was.
And you know why? Because every single day they woke up, they weren’t motivated by greed. They were motivated to work as hard as they could, so that as the sun set, they would shower off the dust of the day, body sore and exhaused and know that they had worked hard. While the rest of the world grows fat, lazy and completely unfulfilled, we are supported by men and women who’s satisfaction in life is based on their own decision to outwork their ability. Every single day.
Not all of us have the option to sell up everything and work the land for that deep sense of exhausted satisfaction… But we do have fitness. It is through our exercise that we can reach physical exhaustion. Complete fulfilment of the fact that we worked hard. And in the end, money, love, universe, god, religion, politics – none of that matters if you can go to sleep every night knowing you worked hard that day. Knowing that you gave more than you took. Exercise to exhaustive satisfaction, labour elsewhere to mental exhaustive satisfaction.
Now back to the magic of the universe.
You know what I ohn for now? I ohm to be the perfect version of me for the day. I ohm to the tune of hard work, responsibility, accountability and above all else – not asking another person to take time out of their MANIFESTATION to give me the rewards of their hard work.
I don’t work for a ferrari, I don’t work for a set of abs, I don’t eat for performance, I don’t eat for weight loss. I perform to my limits, I work harder than yesterday, I run further than last week, and I eat less than I need.
I’m hungry all the time. Hungry to make a difference. I sometimes hate the hunger, I sometimes hate myself. But I’d rather be hungry, because when I’m hungry, I take action, need action, take chances, work hard, risk lots and perform better and GIVE everything.
One day, when I am old, surrounded by grandchildren, I want to feel sore. I want to feel tired. I used to want to stay fit through old age, but not any more. A life of caution never reaches exhaustion. I want to be stiff and tired and weathered – I want to be satisfied. Whatever happens as a result of my labour is (god/buddah/allah/universe/thor’s) decision. I will just control what I can – myself.
One exhausted sunset at a time.
If this sounds like you, then you’re going to love FITlosophy 2 – order your copy now