Work Like You Don't Need Money And Love Like You've Never Been Hurt

Life sure does know how to pin a person down. You can work hard for years on end only to find yourself back at the bottom of the barrel. You can dedicate your life to your work, to your family, to that one special significant other, and you may very well wake up one day and be left with nothing.

How does one justify this? It isn’t fair. It isn’t right. It isn’t anything other than what it is -- life.

You wake up every single day, and go do something that you believe you either need to be doing or have no other choice but to be doing. You spend your valuable and finite time working, sweating, pushing yourself to do more, to go further.

You do what you do because you believe that doing what you’re doing will take you to where you want to go. You believe your actions will conclude with your desired result. But that isn’t usually the way it works.

No matter what we do in life, there is always a risk of failure. It may be a failure on our part or a failure on the universe’s part for not bringing to fruition the hopes and dreams that we worked so diligently for. Regardless, a failure is a failure -- and boy oh boy are we good at failing.

We’re so amazing at screwing things up ourselves that you’d think the universe would pick up some of the slack. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. Not only will the universe not work to help you, it will work against you.

The universe (our universe) is filled with people -- people who have their own wants, their own needs, their own dreams. As naturally competitive beings, human beings will be more than happy to step all over you if it means getting ahead themselves.

This is where most people will whip out the word "karma." I’m not sure what world everyone else lives in, but I have yet to see karma work the way it is said to work. The rich get richer. The poor get poorer. The dumb get dumber.

Karma is just a foolish way of justifying not having the guts to stand up for yourself. It’s telling yourself that some mystical power will keep the balance of good and evil in the world on your behalf.

Here’s a secret: There is no such thing as good and evil. There is good and bad. There is right and wrong (and even that is often subjective), but there is no such thing as good and evil. Good people die just as bad people do -- karma played no role.

Things happen because things need to happen. We live in a world in which things are constantly changing, constantly being born and dying, constantly clashing and releasing energy. It’s the universe we live in, with very specific laws. There isn’t as much mystery as we’d like to believe there is.

You can be the greatest husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend or friend-friend, and still get stabbed in the back. You’re still likely to be lied to, cheated on, abused and used.

It’s not because you're paying for your earlier sins; you’re just living and things are just happening. You can try to control as much of your life as possible, but you will always be left with countless variables of uncertainty.

So what does this all mean? I’m still trying to figure that out. The way I see it right now, it doesn’t change a damn thing. You’re still going to want what you want. You’re still going to dream the dreams you dream. You have only one choice: keep going.

Do whatever it is that brings a smile to your face and do it for as long as it keeps bringing that smile to your face. Once it no longer makes you happy, figure out what you need to do next. Don’t worry about the money.

Don’t worry about the long hours and the incredibly long distance that you have to go before you achieve your goals. Don’t think about any of that; just keep doing whatever it is that you believe you ought to be doing because that’s really your best option.

It’s all about options, choices. We can only choose between whatever opportunities are presented to us. We can head in a certain direction, but we can’t have what we can’t possibly have in this moment in time. What is impossible is impossible. Dream big, but remain a realist.

Life is going to hurt. You’re going to get your heart broken by friends, lovers, life choices and by the luck of the draw. You’re going to get beaten over and over again -- that is the way most people experience life.

But if you keep doing whatever it is that you love to do and stop worrying about all those things that don’t matter -- like money or that dumb ex who broke your heart -- then even if you aren’t ecstatic, you’ll be content.

Sometimes in life we need to aim for contentedness. Be content and then you may be able to build off from that. You may be able to better take those blows and to navigate with a clearer mind.

We take life too seriously too often, pretending it has all these extra rules that it doesn’t actually have. Live by your own rules. Do what you want to do and just be sure to set a good example by respecting others.

Work like you don’t need money and love like you’ve never been hurt. It’s really all in your head.

Photo Courtesy: We Heart It

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