“ There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them.”
~ Denis Waitley
What are some things that cannot be bought? When you hear the word priceless what does that mean to you? How do you assign value anyway?
My inquiry today is about the difference between earning and owning. Just because you own something, doesn’t necessarily mean that you earned it. Or vice versa.
There are lots of different ways to own something. You can buy it with money. Someone can give to you. You could find it, claim it, and clean it up.
Or it could mean that you are owning up to something, taking accountability for your own behavior or acknowledging and accepting something within yourself. A quality you are proud of and happy to keep, or a fault you recognize and determine to improve upon.
What got me started thinking about all this is a quote I ran across the other day by someone by the name of Naval Ravikant: “A fit body, a calm mind, a house full of love. These things cannot be bought — they must be earned.“ Fair enough, right? This bit of wisdom stands to reason. It’s useful lens to approach life with.
But our culture’s default mode is to strive for success, focus on goals, chase things, build things, do things. For too many people, the cost of “success“ is ill health, a chaotic mind, and love on the rocks. Not to disparage having your act together and comfortably meeting your needs, but beyond survival lies the greater things in life.
There’s a different sort of value in things we can ‘be’ rather than ‘do’. You can be fit. You can be calm. You can exist in an atmosphere of love. A worthy place to arrive, so how do you get there?
Each and every present moment is the place to start. It’s your everyday choices, the habits you stick to, and the cumulative results of your actions that create the path to well-being. In other words, practice, practice, practice.
By looking at life through the lens of your ideal state of being, you’ll begin to recognize when your present moments don’t quite match up with where you’d like to ‘be’.
That’s when to ask yourself what action, habit, or choice you can make that will bring you closer to your Panglossian ideal “Everything is just as it should be in this best of all possible worlds.”
Earning something ineffable takes equal parts effort and consciousness. To arrive at the state of being that you want to inhabit, let that vision guide everything that you do. It’s the metaphysical dance of life.
À bientôt! Much love till next Monday!
M+
Mark Metz
Director of the Dance First Association
Publisher of Conscious Dancer Magazine