Get To Vs. Have To/dreamLife

At the end of the day, two things are going to define this year for me.   The first one is a coherent-for-me Dream Life, and a precice articulation of what I would want to do, how much tension exists between structure and spontinaety, how I include my friends, how I treat and deal with my family, my God, my commitments.   I pissed away more than 8 years in chasing money in the RE business.   The RE World is beautiful, but chasing mere money–rather han a standard of excellence is a poor idea.   You gotta create and–as was said in the immortal film classic Rocky Balboa, you gotta let the beast out.

So how can you live a dream life if you can’t articulate it in every nuance.  How can you do any of that, at all…?  I’m going to take dreamLife and make it mine.   (Tomororw’s post will ave more on that.)  F### what people think, make your life your own, grab it and go.   (See: To His Coy Mistress for details on how to live a life).  It’s time to take it because nobody is giving it to me.

The second was this brief post by Seth Godin:

How much of your day is spent doing things you have to do (as opposed to the things you get to do.)

In my experience, as people become successful and happier (the subset that are both) I find that the percentage shifts. These folks end up spending more and more time on the get to tasks.

You’d think that this happens because their success permits them to skip or delegate the have to tasks. And to some extent, this is true. But far more than that, these people redefine what they do all day. They view the tasks as opportunities instead of drudge work.

That stunned me.  Because there is a lot of stuff I don’t like.  I do like my life right now, even though I’ve moved into a shitty and small apartment (to save money, recover from the IRS, etc).   And there are drudging tasks that I don’t dig (configuring WP servers).   But for the last 11 months, I’ve made a living…an honest to god LIVING as a writer.   I had do do other stuff, too, to get that, but damn, I get to create for cash, and it’s been more than plenty to make ends meet.

That post is more important to me than anything in his other books.   That idea sums up having a good attitude more succinctly than I would otherwise do it…and is truly a brief paradigm shift.  May Seth Prosper for adding that to my life.

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