Just an illusion

Why is it that unemployed people go as far as attempting suicide, and people working, dream at 10am about walking barefoot in a lost beach in Thailand?
Well, my perception about jobs changed radically after my death.
At first, my career was my life, I wanted to be CEO of the company I was working for, I dreamed about a business magazine cover with some highlight about my brightness in sales or innovation, I feared nothing, just to come short on those huge expectations I had set, loved business traveling, having breakfast in one country and dinner in other, wanted speed to satisfy client needs, strategic planning, thinking out of the box, surprising competitors with new blue oceans in the industry, and so on. An MBA was an obvious next step, then I would get a regional position and begin to climb the corporate ladder from a higher step. If my job was my life what happened If I quitted or was fired? Well, I would get another life in another company, where a new industry would have different challenges and the game would begin again.
After all the thinking in the hospital, wondering about all the things I could have lost, when I got back to my office, a lot seemed different. Although everything was in the same place, something just didn’t match.
A lot of people get sick after working 14 or 16 hours a day, not eating healthy, not getting enough sleep, and living in a continuous rush, even got divorced. It was a decision: career or family. That didn’t make sense anymore. It did when life was filled with a job, but when working is just one way to get money to use it in what you really want on your free time or on holidays, other forgotten things become a priority. Health, family, friends, knowledge, intellectual growth, resting, admiring, feeling, become priceless and win over any job issue. As my ex boss sister stated: “Work takes a lot of time”
I tried to imagine working without any pay. What kind of job would I accept for free? Not many that I know. So I realized that a career was not what I wanted in life, it’s just the means to get the money we need in this world to pay for what we really want. That’s why many think about beaches and sports while working, because the best scenario would be getting your paycheck while traveling or playing, while really living. A job it’s necessary not just for the money, but for self-esteem, for feeling useful to humanity, for making good use of what we know and what we are good at, for making the best use of our potential, but is just a mean.
Some people work in something that they would do for free, just for the emotion, or for the knowledge they get or create, that’s great, and I think it’s just for a minority, other people work in whatever they can just to pay the bills, it’s a must for the responsibilities they have with kids or debts, that must be a very hard situation, and some other people are able to choose their positions, or at least have options to choose, that’s very nice. But it would be great if everybody understand that there are a lot of priorities before their jobs. Work as hard as you can in your schedule, be as efficient as possible, be creative, supportive, give everything but keep in mind it’s your job, not your life.
There might be cycles too. Workers want to be entrepreneurs, handle their own time and skip bosses, and some entrepreneurs would like the security of a monthly check.
I know a lot of people running their own business, smaller than a previous job, but happier, or ex-workaholics with newborns changing dippers without sleep, but satisfied. There are many reasons or situations that make people understand the role of their jobs in life, but there’s a lot of people killing themselves for raising the stock price for shareholders. Is it worth sacrificing health and family for someone else to change It’s yacht? Is you decision.

Luck?

I don’t have an explanation for the feeling, but clearly people, animals, places, among others, generate energies or sensations that can be perceived in different levels. I think that even animals get that sense, as dogs bark to some people and act tenderly to strangers without any visual reason.
These energies not only are so powerful that can be perceived by others, but have impact on results, are transferred and shared, and might dominate how we think and feel. I even think that a group of those energies can modify physical things or actions.
We all feel good or uncomfortable around some people, and perceive worries and sadness in places like hospitals, but is this something we can get under control? How can we receive good energy and avoid getting contaminated with bad energies?
I might think that we can generate positive or negative energies by ourselves, but we get contaminated too by energies of people around us, and the charge we have influences our days and relations.
Recently I had one of the worst years professionally speaking. Although I didn’t get any warnings or lectures from my boss, everything that could go wrong with my clients went the worst way, and what had good chances went to the basket too. I tried and tried hard for things to generate results, but was frustrating. Even almost impossible things happened for bad, and several times. At first I thought it was just bad luck, but someone told me that I was charged with bad energy and that it showed. At first I didn’t gave it a lot of thought, but a “cleaning” method was proposed and having nothing to loose, I tried.
Well, everything began to change, results were better, and personally I was feeling better too. After this, I began to pay a lot of attention to energies of people and places, whenever I felt something I didn’t like, I rather leave. I began to protect the good vibe I was accumulating, and I kept this by myself.
We might confuse sometimes energy with mood, but there’s a lot of people depressed with kind of good energy, and happy people with horrendous vibes. Although our mood might influence our energy, I believe what we think, the reason for our actions, and how satisfied we are with ourselves have a lot more impact in the result.
Given the impact our energy has on the results of everything we do, although not tangible, might be one of our most important assets we could explode.
Do you ever have asked yourself why there’s many people that begins some project with all the effort, the resources, the capabilities, and at the end they fail? I may guess that energy could be that little help to succeed or fail, depending on what you radiate. Good vibe might be the reason to get in to a rising spiral, where good things lead to better things, to nice people, and so on. Or the other way too.
Almost everybody knows about energies, but what I would like to encourage is to cultivate it, grow it, protect it, depurate it, and clean it, this despised valuable it’s changing my concept of luck.

Jump

Living under our sense of security, is very uncommon to loose some of what we handle, even if is taking us apart from what we want in life. Acting the society rules we usually follow, we know deep inside if we are going our way or the people’s way, but the decision of letting go what we have, what we have achieved, to follow some odd idea that seems crazy to the people around us, it’s sentenced to death even before the first thought.
From other very known book, I read that the world conspires in favor of those who follow their dreams, meaning that although we can not guarantee from the beginning that everything it’s going to be as great as we would like, if we take those hard and crazy decisions following our hearts instead of our minds, things begin to happen, helping our dreams to be achieved. It’s like jumping into the darkness without knowing what’s down there, but hoping the best.
Well, for me, it was time to make one of those steps. After my life was on track again, I was happy, felt satisfied but needed a change. I wanted time for me outside the city routine, wanted to see everything as new, wanted to be curious about people, traditions, places, food, language, wanted to recover time lost and enjoy small but rewarding pleasures, I wanted to discover again all the things I knew. So I decided to move to another country. My choice? China.
To move to China would be like being born again. Everything new, I would have to learn everything, beginning with Chinese, traditions, food, religion and so on. I wanted a change and this would make it. So, instead of just planning as I did before, I made all the arrangements for the move. University, visa, explored job options, travel locations, everything was set. But suddenly the plan changed.
A great opportunity appeared, and my almost sure trip to China changed for Brazil. An incredible opportunity impossible to reject, if I had asked for that option, would have been very difficult to get it, but then I remembered what the book said, and I understood. I wanted a change, I took the decision, made the step, and the world conspired to help me achieve what I wanted. Maybe China wasn’t the best option, or maybe isn’t the best option right now, but instead of letting my life go to the drift, I jumped and as I’m falling, I’m realizing the dark place wasn’t so bad. Maybe there’s something I must learn in Brazil, maybe there’s someone I should meet, or maybe I have to live something there to prepare for the future. As far as I know, everything happens for a reason, and what happens is the best thing for me.

Releasing ballast

Before the heart attack, I read a lot of books that stated that people should live the present instead of past or future. I understood the concept but in our daily race is difficult to forget about everything that happened and might impact our future, the image people has from us, the consequences past acts might have, and our future too: meetings, tasks, challenges, and so on. In that time, the carpe diem motto sounded like a reason for laziness to me. As we live with the confidence of the average life of 70+ years, we are worried mainly about setting everything for a better future.
After realizing that most of our worries are about things we cannot anticipate or things we can plan but we cannot guarantee, and that those worries destroy any hint of tranquility we could enjoy, in my search for internal happiness I decided to apply all that theory and cliché phrases and live the day without worrying unnecessarily. This helped me to get a more relaxed perception of things. I finally understood that many of our torturing thoughts are out of our control and we should do everything in our hands to achieve the desired result, but loose the day and night worries.
The process surprised many friends and peers who knew me as someone who had everything planned, and the idea even seemed like lack of interest in people and things. When my girlfriend argues because in some months we’ll be separated and my answer is “don’t worry, we are together right now and that’s what matters” my love for her might be at stake from her point of view, but inside, I know many things can happen in that time, and that by worrying, I cannot change what happens or I cannot extend time. I just enjoy the day with her, and when the time comes I will confront the situation. But imagine being sad for months and at the end the visa isn’t approved. That’s too much free worries, and if you add work issues, family issues, money, even holiday destination becomes a problem; you might be charged full with no reason worries.
The road to happiness is long and full of obstacles, but a lot of our main reasons for bitterness and preoccupations, come from our minds. It’s easier and better to walk that road light, free of useless weight, and thinking a lot about the future doesn’t allow us to enjoy the things and moments we have in the present. This is one of the ballast we can liberate from, throw it away and enjoy what you have in front for a change.

Daily wealth

The value we give to time, depends on the situation or the deadline we have. There are times when we would give anything for just a few more minutes, hours or days. Ask someone dying and you´ll recognize the real value of time.
But most of the time we use it and waste it as if was endless. As Millôr Fernandes says: “who kills time isn’t an assassin, but it’s committing suicide”.
We usually fail to take advantage of the only wealth we all share. No one can buy, lend, advance or save time. The richest or smartest person has the same time any of us have, but the majority of us doesn’t give the value time deserves. We waste it and undervalue it until we get into a situation where time is what matters most. Only there we begin to value that treasure. Only when we understand that time could disappear without notice, we begin to take full advantage of every minute we own.
Time isn’t productivity either. Taking advantage of time isn’t necessarily to be working, learning, producing or earning. Is just using it for our needs, our plans, or our happiness. Relaxing, sleeping, thinking, contemplating or admiring might be a great way to invest our time, as it is traveling or reading if that’s what we really want.
Every day we wake up with the same 24 hours every body has, and it’s up to ourselves to determine what to do with it. Every day we wake up, open our eyes and get our new daily wealth, and we can invest it, spend it or throw it away. Some days might appear to have only 12 hours if you share it with someone you love, or 36 hours if you are sick in bed, time perception varies depending how good or bad you use it. I would like to live 12 hour days for the rest of my life, it might be something close to happiness, and I would love to die after a 5 hour day.
So, what are you going to do with your time today?

Play to win

Play to win is the name of a book I read some years ago. As many great things we read, we agree, and get exited about our own potential, but our minds and our false sense of security doesn’t allow us to act. As I had now clear that I wanted to take control of my life, and live it, I had to act accordingly. Not as I always did, protecting what I had achieved at the moment, but letting things go, in pursuit of bigger dreams I had.
When I was at school, and later at the University, I was a good student. My grades were one of the best, I did well in all classes, I excelled academically. This created a brand for me. A “smart” guy. And smart people do not make mistakes. So every time I had to make decisions, instead of going for the home run, I played it safe, to maintain my brand.
When there was any risk of loosing my smart image, I rather take the secure path. I decided with fear. This is why many smart people remain secure in jobs instead of creating the companies they dream about, this is why many live conservative lives, instead of running to other places or changing careers to follow their dreams, just because we play not to lose, instead of playing to win as it says the book. I don’t know the cause of it, but when there’s a 50/50 probability, we always think the worse option will prevail. It seems universally genetic. So, we avoid any risk. Some of the greatest achievements in the world have been made by people with not much to lose, or by people who took great risks, these are players, and most of us are spectators. We can watch the game of the world if we want, but we can not be spectators in our own life game. At the end, it’s very frustrating if you know you had everything to do what you wanted to do but you waste it.
This principle applies for beginning our projects, inviting somebody we like, buying something we want, investing. Not every time we’ll get the result expected, but we’ll get many of the results desired, and this will make us close o what we dream about.
Many times we feel trapped, with no possibilities to move ahead, without visible exits, but is our decision to chose moving towards what we want, to advance we need to take some risks, as long as some ventures are successful we’ll begin to advance. I finally forgot what people might think about me, and began to advance. It took me a life to make the first step, but the long walk began.

Ps: The name of the book is Play to win, by Larry Wilson

Memento

How easy is to forget. And the worse of it, is that we forget what we want in our life.
We tell ourselves lies that we force us to believe about being happy, but deep inside we know the truth. When something hard or impressive happens, we think about what we are doing, but the next morning we are in automatic mode again.
As hard as my heart attack impacted my life, in a moment, after everything went back to normality, I forgot and turned to the automatic pilot, not deciding where to go in life but letting the waves move me wherever the wind blew.
I was again in the comfort zone, but destiny wouldn’t surrender that easy. A 2 minute, 7,9 magnitude earthquake showed me death in the face again, and tattooed in my mind how fragile life is and how short it could be.
Weeks later, a friend told me crying, that one of her best friends died in a car accident. He always was one of the best students, had changed to a better job and was very happy with a new girlfriend, just planning to get married. Always behaved as correct as he could and did things right. But some drunk guy that ignored a red light thought it was enough time for him, game over.
For me, It was necessary something as strong as dying to make me change my life and take control of it. But the environment we live in, is so powerful and has such influence in our futures that we usually loose control. My incident made a lot of people think. That Monday night I was told many of my friends and family cried for hours. Many couldn’t sleep at all. And not only was because the health problem of a friend or co-worker, but because the fragility of life was demonstrated horrendously in their faces. Death could happen to moms, dads, sons, husbands, girlfriends or even themselves, and clearly nobody lived under that certainty. That night, many made plans, took decisions, began to take control of the wonder of their lives, but a few weeks after, almost all of those remained as plans and decisions, none became actions.