Ask­ing “What’s it all about?” is less passé then you might think.

I sup­pose I’ve always been a bit of a dreamer.  Some of the ear­li­est inter­nal mono­logues I can remem­ber revolve around me being con­vinced I was meant for some­thing, like there would be noth­ing typ­i­cal about my life or the way I went about it.  I don’t exactly know where these feel­ings came from, or why I feel them as strongly today as I did then, but I do know that the more I feel con­nected to those grand designs in daily life, the hap­pier and more ful­filled I am.  I’m com­ing to see that this isn’t an abnor­mal­ity — this is human­ity. The very qual­ity of being human enables you to think in the abstract, to strive for ideals that you can not see or touch.  These ideals are what philoso­phers, artists, and writ­ers all try to trans­late into the perceptible.

Dream­ing is the Default Set­ting for Humans

Real­ize it or not, you are wired to dream, and I don’t mean that in the sense of want­ing a big­ger house or fancier clothes.  Those things are fine for what they are, and there’s noth­ing wrong with want­ing to treat your­self to a nice suit or a posh din­ner if you have the money.  How­ever, these are not ends that can moti­vate you in the long term, and the plea­sure you expe­ri­ence from them is fleeting.

So what are some exam­ples of ideals that really moti­vate? Here are a few:

• Loy­alty to friends, fam­ily, sig­nif­i­cant others
• Con­cern for your com­mu­nity, be it local, regional, national, or global
• Tran­scen­dent feel­ings or a sense of won­der from medi­a­tion, exer­cise, art, and travel
• Romance with a sig­nif­i­cant other (not sim­ply a com­fort­able relationship)

Hap­pi­ness Means Reject­ing Comfort

It is all too easy to make your life about rou­tine and com­fort.  In fact, most pro­duc­tiv­ity gurus explain how to get more done, how to sched­ule, how to be more effi­cient, and while all of these things are use­ful, they’re sec­ondary, not pri­mary in focus.  These things can help you get to where you want to be, but whether or not you are liv­ing on the edge of your com­fort level or ful­fill­ing your pas­sions is not a func­tion of how effec­tive your cal­en­dar or to-do list are.  Instead, it’s a func­tion of what you have decided you want to spend your time and energy work­ing towards.

It’s very easy to ignore the voice in your head that tells you you’re not happy at your job, or that you want to see your fam­ily more, or that you shouldn’t have can­celed plans with your close friend. Many do it through excuses (i.e. “I don’t have time” or “I don’t want to make promises I can’t keep”). If you’re telling your­self you don’t have enough time to do some­thing that’s really impor­tant to you, you’re prob­a­bly spend­ing too much time on some­thing that isn’t.

Don’t Delude Your­self — You Decide Your Own Path

The key here is your con­trol over your deci­sions.  Mak­ing excuses for why you don’t have time to focus on the things that really mat­ter is sur­ren­der­ing your auton­omy, piece by piece.  To quote High Fidelity, it’s “sui­cide by tiny incre­ments.”  Each and every per­son pos­sesses an infi­nite capac­ity for cre­ativ­ity, beauty, energy, and pur­pose, and the more you dull the desire for those things with work-related stress, an unhealthy lifestyle, or destruc­tive rela­tion­ships, the less you are able to real­ize that potential.

So how does this trans­late into action? If you feel that your life is a lit­tle too bland or com­fort­able, I rec­om­mend the following:

1. Sit down with a piece of paper or your com­puter, and write down what there is too much of in your life, and what there’s a lack of.
2. Keep doing this until you get past the mate­r­ial or petty things and start­ing com­ing up with the things that really get you excited.
3. Once you have a list of things that you want to be doing more of, start brain­storm­ing ideas of how to incor­po­rate them into your broad life plan, as well as your daily sched­ule.  This will likely trans­late into things you need to do less of, like watch TV, main­tain friend­ships that aren’t serv­ing either per­son, or doing extra work for your job at home. Are you a peo­ple pleaser?  Do you sign up to do things that aren’t that impor­tant to you out of guilt or social obligation?

A Pas­sion­ate Life Imi­tates Art

I think there’s a rea­son that artists often have such emo­tional tur­moil in their lives — it’s because for them, the stakes of liv­ing pas­sion­ately are that high.  I’m not say­ing that emo­tional tur­moil is some­thing to seek or that it’s inte­gral part of a pas­sion­ate life, but if you don’t feel strongly about the life you lead, then it might be time to rethink how you’re lead­ing it.  Con­tent­ment is a dan­ger­ous con­cept — when some­one describes him­self as “con­tent,” it means noth­ing in his life is really all that bad, and noth­ing is really that good.

Con­tent­ment did not cre­ate the Mona Lisa.  Per­sonal growth and pas­sion come from liv­ing out­side of your com­fort zone and striv­ing for the things that you think about at the end of the day, the things you really want to be spend­ing your time on.  Remem­ber, the stakes couldn’t be higher — this is the only oppor­tu­nity you’re going to get to ful­fill your dreams.