Are You Wasting Your Life?
It’s not what you think.
I’m asking about right now, I’m asking about this very moment. As your living eyes read this post, as you breathe life into your lungs and the blood runs through your body, are you wasting that force? That energy? Every day we set out to do some “thing” in furtherance of accomplishing some “thing” else. Maybe we go to our office and we do “work” in furtherance of; making money, or fulfilling a mission. Maybe even in furtherance of helping others. But at the end of the day, have we tied ourselves to whatever that “thing”, that result, is and instead of living our life and using our life force, we’re wasting it away?
Life Is Not About The Destination, It’s The Journey.
In the book “Karma: A Yogi’s Guide To Crafting Your Destiny“ by Sadhguru, he talks about our work and our entanglement with that work. The entanglements are created by us in our professional pursuits. He talks about how a person who goes to an office to count numbers does “accounting work”. The work carries with it no meaning to the individual. It’s simply work they can dedicate themselves to wholeheartedly (in that very moment) and commit their “life” to as they do the work. And sure, there’s some side effects, like helping people and making money. But there’s no entanglement with this work and the worker’s life.
Q: What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?
A: Me. Living my best life.
The moment that the person ties their-self to the profession, or ties their worth and the meaning of this work to the benefits of “being” the accountant (ie. social respect, relationships, accolades or access that the profession allows) they then become entangled, and this is no longer about living and doing work, it is about BEING an accountant. Counting numbers is no longer the work done by the individual, the work, in fact, replaced the life of the person. Their life wasted, replaced by the work and the entanglement of being an accountant. Take away their title, they are no more.
The book goes on further to state that it may seem paradoxical that finding “meaning” in life can only occur if we take back and remove the meaning we’ve attributed to our professions, this made up sense of “necessity” that drives our actions. Essentially, to be disentangled from our “purpose“ and to approach work as an activity we engage with but to remove any “meaning” of the work other than the acts themselves. (ie. It’s not that I am a lawyer, it’s that I excitedly approach the practice of law as Nico the individual.) Sadhguru explains that “…It is people themselves who build false sense of self importance by claiming that their work is divinely ordained. If they learn to plunge into something that does not mean anything to them with absolute involvement, they would find their karma disentangling in no time…be involved in the process, not the product.“
Stop Asking People “What Do You Do For A Living?” When You’re Only Asking “How Do You Identify Professionally?”, We Should Be Asking “Who Are You, Tell Me About Your Life?”
We expand so much energy in society trying to be identified as some thing. Sme representation of some status or idea that we believe elevates us as beings. We claim to be; entrepreneurs, doctors, lawyers, and any other title that we believe bestows respect upon us or commands it from society. But what we are in life only matters if we look at who we are as human beings. Are we trying to put titles on our existence in furtherance of hiding our true selves? What is your life force? Who are you? What are you? Are you exchanging your life force for a title that really doesn’t matter?
Another quote from the book reads:
Karma yoga reminds us that action is never a problem. It is the expectation of the fruit of the action that causes suffering. If you simply enjoy what you do and work at it wholeheartedly, there is no question of suffering at all. You would work joyfully, and your ability to work would be hugely enhanced.
Karma: A Yogi’s Guide to Crafting Your Destiny, by Sadhguru
There is nothing wrong with wanting to heal people, enjoying litigating a big case, building a new business, or even managing a library. The problem lies in our exchange of what is so special (our life force and our “self”) for the title. And what that title means to the rest of society. If you no longer enjoy the work you do but require yourself to continue in it so that you can maintain the title, YOU, have given away your life in exchange for the entanglement that you believe is your work, or your life’s purpose.
I went to law school so I am a lawyer. So as you sit around and convince yourself that your life mission requires you to be a lawyer or a doctor or a librarian, you must come to terms with the fact that you have forsaken yourself and you are no longer alive. You are a slave.
GTF OVER IT. BE YOU.
I’m not trying to suggest that we shouldn’t work, we absolutely should work, and also work hard! But once the work becomes you, YOU are no longer. It is only the work that exists, and your life, wasted.
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