What is your purpose for life; what is it you really want?  Is that what you’re doing with your life?  I think that I’m like a lot of other people; I grew up wanting things.  I wanted the newest toys when I was a child; I wanted the things that other kids had.  And when I was older I wanted a car.  I wanted clothes like others had, later a cool job, a beautiful wife, a great house, and so on.  I learned that money got me some of the things I liked, so I wanted money.  And like other people sometimes I got what I wanted and sometimes I didn’t.  But there was a catch to it all.

Usually, in fact almost always, two things happened when I got what I wanted.  My interest in what I wanted diminished significantly once I got it, and always something else came up that I wanted and the whole cycle of “want and get” started over.  And this cycle continued year after year.

At some point, if you’re lucky, you realize that wanting and getting are tremendous drains on your energy.  And you begin to realize that there some things that you’d much rather have or that you’d passionately prefer to be doing with your life than “wanting and getting.”  And if you’re like me, that’s when you realize that you’re locked in financially to a “wanting and getting” system you’ve created; to high paying jobs you don’t like, but that you’ve struggled to get to pay for “wanting and getting.”  And you are trapped and begin a slow process of escaping the trap to live the real life you actually do want.

I wonder if a lot of people just stay right there.  Or do they break free and change their direction?  A film called “God and the Chocolate Ice Cream” by Nic Askew deals with wanting and getting.  It uses an analogy of a visit to the bookstore.  You pick out a stack of books that you want.  Then sort them.  First there are the ones you decide “no” you really don’t want much, then the ones that, “yes” you passionately do want, and the rest are those that “maybe” you want.  The question is, what do you do with the three stacks of books?

Do you say “yes” to the “yes” stack, “no” to the “no” stack and “no” to the “maybe” stack?  Or do you say “no” to your “yes” books, “yes” to your “no” books, and “yes & no” to your “maybe” books?  Or just “maybe” to all of them?  If you say “no” to your “yes” then are you denying yourself your passions?  If you say “yes” to your “no” are you stuck in a rat race of want and get?

So I ask you, in your life, and in your business, are you aligned with your purpose for life?  Or are you denying your passions and working for something that you really don’t want?  Life is short.  I say follow your passions.  Don’t spend your energy and your life struggling to get what you really don’t want and to become who you really are not!