You better be ready to sacrifice your lower nature to make room for a life of a higher nature.
My wife and I took a road trip to the Berkshires of Western Connecticut today. Serene, pristine and quite gorgeous, the mountains, deep forests and farm country in this region makes for postcard-worthy snaps.
I also stumbled upon one of the most powerful prep basketball programs while driving through the area. South Kent School is traditionally one of the top prep programs in the United States. 10 players from this tiny school in a rural setting have made the NBA. Roughly 100 alumni have played division 1 college ball.
Why?
Literally, there is *nothing* else to do here, other than playing basketball and focusing on your academics. South Kent is in the boonies. Many kids living in the inner city choose to attend prep powerhouses like South Kent to leave the distractions and temptations of the city behind, to focus on hoops and books.
But being in the middle of nowhere challenges city kids and heck, any high school kid. Convenience all but dissolves. Whereas you used to walk 2 minutes to the corner store for a snack, now you need to watch out for bears as you trek through a remote wilderness, and no bodega awaits you on the other side of the forest.
Each teenager makes a bold move; deciding to leave behind your lower nature life of comfort, convenience and familiarity for your higher nature life of discomfort, dreams, freedom and new-ness, feels incredibly scary, depressing and immensely challenging, in moments. But making millions as an NBA player or getting a college scholarship and college degree sure beats hanging out on the streets of your home town for decades, as many of these kids honestly share that they were destined to do.
Preparing to live your dreams means letting go lower nature comforts for higher nature freedoms. Take today; I drove through New England for 3 hours this morning. Instead of lazing around on a beautiful Sunday I will jog with the dog for 90 minutes, do 2 hours of yoga and work until midnight, to make up for our road trip.
Do I miss lower energy habits like sleeping in, watching TV and overeating on a Sunday, as I tried to de-stress for a stressful work week? Hell no! Not one bit! I let go the lower nature life of:
- working a stressful job solely to make money to cover my survival needs; food, shelter
- engaging in mindless de-stressing on weekends (TV time, sleeping in, partying at night)
to engage in fun, freeing and sometimes, highly uncomfortable, higher energy life habits like:
- meditating
- doing yoga
- stepping into an icy cold shower on waking
- exercising
- spending much of my day building my blogging business
for 12-14 hours every single day.
I lived my dreams of circling the globe because I made fun, freeing, sometimes uncomfortable choices to live a higher nature life of thriving and to completely leave behind a lower nature life of surviving in depressing, confining comfort.
Living your dreams is not for the faint of heart but is life a journey for weaklings to try to crawl from cradle to grave, without facing fear or discomfort along the way?
Live your dreams. Everybody dreams different dreams. Dream your life. Live your dreams. Prepare for facing bumps, bruises and fears but know this: sacrificing is letting go life of a lower nature to make room for life of a higher nature. All the fears you face simply held you back into a bound, unhappy, comfortable and confining existence, as it is.
Does it sound wise to run back to *that* life?
Or does it sound wise to move forward in discomfort and freedom, toward your dreams?
