Can you spot the miracle...?

In all probability, each of us appears to have ONE and only ONE lifetime available to us. Critically, it consists of an unknown duration that could end abruptly at any moment and THAT can be scary. In a world that is rapidly adopting corporate values into ‘Way of Life’ frameworks by, for example, promoting unnatural, superficial (almost cartoonish-like) gestures of excitement as ‘Way of Being’ behavioural guidelines, approximating laughter, happiness and authenticity and teaching risk mitigation as premise for accomplishment - living properly can appear a little scary. So scary, in fact, that we might be learning to take it far too seriously, rather than treating it the way that we should; like the game that it is intended to be. Sure the rewards are quite real and as you will know, the consequences are entirely flippin’ real and that right there is every point there is. THAT - is the reason that your ‘Game of Life’ should be the most exciting game you will ever get to play. So Play it like you Mean it – since, as it happens, you simply cannot afford the alternative.

You are of course perfectly entitled to imagine into your reality that some flavour of perpetual existence awaits you and that as such, you have all the time in the world to sit around daydreaming, about how in some new shape or form you will one day make a difference (keeping in mind that making a difference is pretty much - all there is). But seriously, even if there is some truth to the notion of a grandiose transition, what would be the point of it, when you have no recollection of your practice runs.

What I really find fascinating though, is that when we (people cut from the conventional cloth) contemplate a divine transformation, even in jest, what we typically imagine is some idealistic and self-indulgent version of greatness and/or freedom. Well, my friend and my enemy, I have some very good news for you. Those two commodities in some shape or form are actually available to you in the life you can make for yourself - TODAY. So if you’re in the mood for believing something useful, believe that; and while you’re at it, consider the possibility that, even if there ‘is’ in fact, some kind of afterward for you, chances are, it will resemble wherever it was that you landed the previous time; same 'naked', same 'capacity', same 'capability', same 'potential', same 'constraints'.

If you don’t believe me, take a look at what’s popping up around you. Conduct a survey, do some people watching, canvas the area and get back to me when you spot the miracle. See if you can finally distinguish what you have actually been looking at for ever, but ignoring away; i.e. Every kind of mediocrity in far greater numbers and only a momentary glimpse of intellectual greatness or emotional freedom, and always, where you least expect it.

Seriously though, even if you do re-emerge as a unicorn or any other figment of your conditioned imagination, chances are, the human beings already occupying this space will (as a matter of course) wipe you out before too long. You won't see it coming though, because instead of telling you what’s about to happen in straight language, we will just confuse you for a while with a popular euphemism. That way you won't see your untimely end unfolding until it's too late - dId I just digress...?

The reality of course is that nobody actually knows what will happen when your lights go out, but shouldn’t you ERR on the side of caution for any concept that emerges from human imagination? Seriously, just take look at the odds and if that fails, cast your eye over the evens. From every conceivable angle, you my friend, are in a casino. I suggest you stop gambling and instead, start living, confident in the knowledge that ‘Playing to Live’ and ‘Waiting to Live’ are not the same thing.

If anything, waiting to properly live is an act of defiant madness if it is nothing else and squandering any part of your one certain life opportunity for what is at best an idea and at worst an illusion, is at the very least - foolish. To thrust (as I very much like to do) this topical contextual metaphor to the brink of extraordinary, I suggest four ways of ‘being’ that you should make every effort to avoid if you are as serious about ‘Playing to Live’ as you are about NOT ‘Playing to Lose’:

1) Stop setting up the board...(You are ready to play and you always have been)

2) Stop copying other people’s moves...(Trailblaze & own the risk of learning from the mistakes that you must make)

3) Stop playing somebody else’s game...(Yours is the only game you could ever hope to win)

4) Stop waiting for the game to change for you...(‘Be’ the change)

Antagonistically...
Your Enemy - but ONLY if you cannot see the difference