The Real Meaning of Life

Muzamil Hassan

When asked what surprised him the most about humanity, the Dalai Lama answered:

‘’we sacrifice our health in order to make wealth, than we sacrifice our wealth in order to get back our health’’.

We are so anxious about what will happen in the future, that we don’t enjoy the present.

The result being, we don’t live in the present or the future. We end up living feeling like we are never going to die and then die never having truly lived.

Eileen Goodman said:

Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for in order get to the job that you need to pay for the clothes and car and the home that’s empty all day just so you can afford to live in it.

We live in a world where day dreams are more common that dream jobs.

Where money clouds our search for meaning in search for profit. We sacrifice our quest for purpose and in the pursuit of those paychecks.

We give up our passion; we are completely rooted to our routines. We are plagued by indecisions and lack of vision. They say that the most powerful prison is one when you don’t even know that you are locked up.

See, the suits are our uniforms, our cufflinks are the hand cuffs, our ties are the chains, our boss is like the guard and well, our cubicles are our cells.

And now I know why they call it the glass ceiling because it shatters our dreams. The only thing we excel at is Microsoft. Now that a power point, you know what it’s like.

We spend our whole day trying to get our work on time but then spend all of our time thinking about work.

We wish our out of office could be permanent. We wish that our inbox would always remain empty. Our LinkedIn resume are more interesting than our actual jobs. Our profile pictures are the happiest we have been in a long time.

We live for the weekend but then end up feeling weak. Clockwork and monotony, but honestly could Mondays be more meaningful?

Could Tuesday be less torture?

Could Wednesday be more worth it?

Could Thursday be more transformative?

Could Friday be more fulfilling?

We countdown the next 50 weeks knowing that there’s another 50 years. We countdown for the next escape knowing that there really isn’t one. Because even when we are away from our desks, our minds are still there with check lists in our heads.

We stuff ourselves into our work clothes, than our buses, than the cars, than the trains, and then our offices. Only to wait 5 days to live again.

We don’t have time to eat dinner together so we end up eating out of take-away boxes, not realizing that the TV box takes away from our relationships.

We eat on the go, meet on the go, we even sleep on the go, and then wonder why everyone cheats on the go.

We are told it’s normal to have a 9 to 5, I mean, actually, sorry it’s a 9 to 9. And its fine if you don’t get enough time with the person you love that took you so long to find, its normal to work late night for the next holiday.

We work 11 months in a row for 1 month of leave with pay.

Hey, who came up with that? It’s not normal we have to re-claim our lives. Because right now we can all barely survive. And because when he comes late home from work she says: you work so hard for a job that would replace you tomorrow if you dropped dead.

And he says: I don’t have time for this right now. And then she says: nothing ever changes. We force ourselves out of bed to live the same day again and again and call it a life.

Imagine this for a moment what if orphan listen to her haters and doubters?

What if steve jobs settled for a real job?

What if the rock never broke through depression?

What if Eileen never overcomes the bullying?

Imagine a world where everyone lived their passion, we could be better people, we could be better partners, we could be better parents.

See I have never seen a strong with an easy past.

We all have a passion, we have a genius inside us, we have that potential. I know that we have all been in that position feeling confused and seriously lacking mission.

But then I asked myself at the end of my life what will I regret?

And the answer is clear.

The pain of regret far out weights the pain of risk. So at times when you are going through challenges just remember this. A winner is just a looser who tried on more time. All you need is one person to say yes, one moment can change everything, there are decades when nothing happens and there are days where decades happen.

A year from now you would wish only if you had started today.