A reason not to worry about wasting life

We have all seen and are seeing children, young adults and of course adults around us who obsess over the question of how they are going to change the world, how they are going to make a name for themselves, what their purpose is going to be, how and by when they can make something of themselves and become a somebody and they obsess over it and they maybe set themselves certain dates, certain ages by which they think they should achieve such and such things. and they grow up to be adults and those ages and dates and whatever come and pass and they start fearing which they've been doing all along also that they'll never amount to anything and they wonder have I wasted my life. They fear am I wasting my life now?

And we've all done this. And I want this video to be the beginning of us completely destroying that fear. Just getting rid of it because it's entirely counter to not only our happiness but to reason.

And I hope to show you how. The first step in my opinion of realizing how feudal this is and how nonsensical it is in reality is to notice the difference between our inward works and our outward works. In other words, how effortlessly and how easily, how simply everything happens within us and how difficult and how to how sometimes impossible it is in our outward works on the things all the things that we try to achieve in the outside world.

The entire crucial point is in this difference. And I want to illustrate that with a with a simple little thing. Imagine you want to tell your friend how you feel about them.

You just want to write them a nice little few words and you decide to do it with a little note card or a postcard or a little letter because you want to make it special. just a little bit of effort. If you have the supplies, you can start writing.

If you don't, you have first have to go out and get the right paper, the the envelopes and and and all that. And then you can start writing it. And if you can find the right words, you can start putting it down on paper.

And you might make a mistake. You might make a spelling mistake. And because you wanted to make it special and somewhat beautiful, of course, you can't just strike through it or anything like that, you want to start over.

You do that however many times. Then when you finally have it all down, that's that's great. You put it in the envelope.

You seal it. If you have a stamp for it, you can put it on. If you realize you're out of stamps, you need to go get stamps.

And after that, you need to walk or drive to the to the closest mailbox or post office. And it still doesn't end there. It literally is out of your hands at that point.

But there's still so much that needs to work out. The weather needs to cooperate. The people who work there need to be competent.

They don't need they must not make a mistake. Uh your letter must not get stuck in some machine. There's luck and luck and chance and and the other people involved and literally weather involved and just randomness.

And if all of that goes well, your friend might receive your letter and they might be there to open it and to read it and to understand it. This is our this is an example to an external work. The same exact work inwardly of thinking these things that you're writing, of feeling this way towards your friend, of thinking of them in your mind is instant and effortless and completely under your control.

Everything inside of us, in our minds, in our souls, in our spirits, whatever you want to call it, in our intellect, is complete and instant and effortless. And the same thing, you can see how much it work it takes if it is to be an outward work, an an activity of us in the outside world versus in the inside world. And I say this to say this, even the simplest of things of of thinking a few words and then needing to accomplish them, so to speak, in the real world to have it reach our friend physically.

You can see how much more work that is than us just already feeling that way and thinking like that within us. And it's the same with this whole idea of what's the meaning of life? What's my purpose?

What's my place in it? How do I how will I find myself? We try to solve these problems so to speak.

We try to make them come real. we we work on them in the outside world and not in the inside world. And that's why we're doomed to fail.

In other words, we're doomed to this fear of never being able to accomplish them because yes, we're probably not. These are dreams and ambitions that that we come up as children, young adults or even adults with the very limited insight into reality into the world that we have and we just go into our imagination and think the outside world will cooperate and will do this and this for us and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and everything will go well so that I might achieve my dreams only so that I can feel like I've made something of myself whatever that means. Whereas to make something of oneself, to find oneself within can be achieved perfectly and effortlessly.

But we go on trying to achieve it, trying to know ourselves, find ourselves and our meaning in life outside of us. And so we're doomed to be constantly pushed and pulled by outside forces, by outside materials and means and luck and other people and chance and weather and climate. All these things that we have no control over, we start holding ourselves responsible for because we have a mission to achieve.

And if that mission, if our mission is not achieved, then we are a failure in our minds. And that's why any little chance thing, any bad luck, the moods and whims of others become extremely important to us and they become a source of anxiety naturally because they can stand in the way of us fulfilling our missions. They can stand in the way of us becoming someone making something of ourselves.

But look at every single philosophy, every single religion that has ever honestly and with dedication tried to find out the meaning of all this. I try to find truth honestly and without ulterior motives all end up saying the same thing. All the ancient Greek philosophers tell us and told themselves know thyself.

In another time, in another place, the Bhagwat Gita says, "Know that by the knowing of which all things are known. " Know that by the knowing of which all things are known, which is thyself. And of course, countless examples in in Christianity, in Islam, in the Bible, and the Quran, everything This is why this is said.

Everything in the outside world is an image of reality. Every single tree you see is an instance, an image of the idea of a tree. Every single dog you see is an instance, an image of dog as a concept.

If every single dog would die and someday will, right, the idea of it will still be there. And if given the right conditions, somewhere in the universe, that same exact concept might find an image again, might become an instance again, might exist again somewhere actively again. Of course, passively it always exists because the idea is always there.

Even if there's not a single dog in the universe, we in our minds know there have been dogs. That idea is real. And that idea doesn't die with the last dog or the last tree or the last human because if it did, we couldn't remember it.

anything that has once existed in tangible form as an image, an example of it and that there's no example of any longer, but we were there when there was. We know in our minds it still exists. The idea, the concept, the blueprint for it will never ever die.

And so we give that up to come to the outside world and to try to do our work there, to become active there, to tie ourselves to become slaves to images and to luck and to chance, the random fate. and we try to achieve that ideological that conceptual that very we could say divine goal that we have within ourselves. Who am I?

What am I? What is all this? What is my place in it?

And we try to answer that question which arises in us when we go and try to answer it outside of us and is never ever going to work. And coincidentally, all the people who ever did truly change something in the world for the better, all those people who did, so to speak, make something of themselves and are still remembered and will always be remembered and stand for something, those are the people who answered that question within themselves, who found meaning within themselves, not in any activity in any mission, in any accomplishment, in any so-called success, in any ambition outside of themselves, not in anything in the outside world. They have never done anything outwardly for its sake.

It all comes from what they know and what they've figured out, what they believe in on the inside. It's only an image of what they achieved truly achieved within themselves and they literally gave up their life in this outside world to live according to the life that they had within them. We read of Socrates who had to drink poison because he was convicted with because of some trumped up charges.

His charges were that because of his questioning, what we now call Socratic questioning, him going around and asking people, "What do you believe and why do you believe it? " And him asking them for so long that they really didn't know why they believed what they believed. He was accused of corrupting the children or corrupting the youth and introducing new gods because his new god so to speak was, you know, reason and he was so-called corrupting the youth because he was confusing them.

He was breaking societal norms that don't really make any sense. Once questions, they they hold up they don't hold up to rationality. And he was simply exposing that factor many times in in Plato's dialogues where he calls himself a midwife.

He says, "I know nothing. I'm just a midwife. I bring out the good ideas within you.

" But anyway, he went to trial and a jury of his peers, hundreds of people by a small margin, found him to be guilty of that. And he drank the poison, which he was sentenced to do even though he could have escaped. And one might might say, what's the point of dying like that?

What's the point of respecting trumped up charges and laws that are objectively backwards and wrong? And just from reading the dialogue, just from reading how he thought, you can tell why he himself was involved in government. so to speak.

He himself was someone who made laws and and um enforced laws and he believed in justice and he believed in a society in which people respect the laws. And so he didn't want to be the one who breaks that. Not because anyone else would perceive him to be a hypocrite, but because he believed that with himself within himself.

And if you really want to satisfy that part of yourself who still thinks that way, who still thinks, well, that was a pointless death. What's the point of that? I'll tell you there was a point even in that way.

By his death, he revealed things. And by his life and by sticking to what he said throughout his life, his death confirmed his belief to everyone else that he believed in his life. It was proof that he truly did think that way.

It was proof that he truly believed these things. And it added a weight to his words and to his thoughts that still exist today. I do believe that the only reason that we still know of Socrates and that we hold those ideas in such high regard is because of this proof and he revealed things to us that once revealed we will never be able to forget again.

Similarly with Jesus it's a very very similar figure in that way. Jesus didn't want to die on the cross. He didn't think when he was a child or a young adult that that would be his ambition.

That that's how he would make a name for himself. That that would be his ambition and his achievement and his goal. No, he found his meaning, his ambition, his purpose in the highest truest sense within himself and then just like Socrates went on uncompromisingly to live according to those ideas which he thought was higher than anything else than any of these images, copies of things the outside world.

And it's because of the things he revealed that he ended up on the cross because it angered the people who didn't understand truly what he was revealing. He said before he died, I will speak in parables and I will reveal what has been hidden since the foundation of the world. And that's exactly what he did.

He revealed why people are angry. He revealed why they hate. He revealed that the kingdom of heaven, God's kingdom is here on earth and not only in some afterlife.

It's that we are in hell can be in hell now and we can be in heaven now. It's about how what we do with this life and how to enter that heaven in this life. That's what he revealed.

But people, many people didn't want to hear about it because it meant that they would have to give up their outward ambitions, their outward works. That they would have to stop loving copies and images and false things and false idols such as money, their greed, their wealth, their successes. all these things they would have to give up to truly enter heaven to find all the answers within them because we can either live inside or outside.

We cannot do both not at the same time anyway. We have to make a choice and it goes counter to everything we've ever been told. And that's why it's so hard, so difficult it feels to let go of these things.

There's another friend who can immediately show us that. And I've talked about him a few times before, Victor Frankl. He wrote a book, Man's Search for Meaning.

It's all in here. He was a Jew during World War II who did actually have to go to a concentration camp. He lost his pregnant wife.

He lost his career. He was a psychologist and I think a professor at schools. He was literally stripped of every single thing he thought he was and ever was and ever could be.

And the only reason he made it out of the Holocaust and had a flourishing career and and inward world and happiness afterwards is because he understood that everything outside of us are copies. and images and not the real thing and that everything truly worth having, everything truly divine, everything truly good is within us. And he looked around himself and he saw the misery of all the people who thought that the things they lost were them.

that they were their careers, that they were their families, that they were their status, that they were what they were doing in the outside world before all of this happened. He saw the desperation and the fear and the anxiety and the complete resignation and depressive deaths of those people. And then he looked around and he saw people in the exact same condition, obviously in the same camp with smiles on their faces.

And he saw even though they too had lost everything and are literally in the same position, they were going around giving people their last pieces of bread that they were secretly hiding. that they would give some people without shoes their own shoes because they thought they needed it more or their jackets. Why?

Because they were living for inward higher ideals. They were they discovered things that are that are higher than the all the images and copies in the outside world. They discovered ideas.

They discovered the idea of love. And true love doesn't make you smile just when things are pretty and easy and comfortable and abundant. But true love is to just see another intellect, another soul right there.

And true kindness is not what you do what you do when you have a million of something and you give someone one. But true kindness is the feeling you have inside. And whether you have 10 pieces of bread, 100 pieces of bread, or just one, if you feel like the other person needs it more because of your honest, true kindness that you have within yourself, then that then there's no attachment to that piece of bread that that person has.

Clearly, or it's their shoes or their jacket. They knew those people knew that they did not lose anything. that none of this could harm them, the true them.

And that this true self of theirs would only be harmed if they despaed. If they started becoming angry, if they started becoming hateful towards their capttors or resentful towards their situation, which is exactly what their enemies felt. Those people who put them there are were the ones who are angry and hateful and resentful.

And they knew that they would not could not lose themselves until they became like them. And to be angry, to be hateful, to be resentful is a choice. And they knew that if they made that choice, then they would truly lose everything.

And so simply, they did not make that choice. Because like we said before, everything in the inside world, our beliefs, our opinions, our thoughts, the ideas that we choose to have, it's effortless to believe in them. Everything is effortless and simple.

things only get toilsome and extremely hard and complicated and pretty much impossible on the outside. It is on the outside world that we need means, resources, effort, ambition, drive. In the inside world, none of that is needed and much, much higher things are accomplished.

Not even close, not even comparable to what you can accomplish in the outside world. To go through the Holocaust and to come out of it and say, "I have found meaning. I have meaning and I still smile and I still love and I still haven't given into anger and hatred.

" That's an accomplishment. That's making something of yourself. That's finding yourself.

And that's finding meaning and purpose and whatever you want to call it. What better so-called ambition, achievement, success is there than that? And of course, we don't need to go through the Holocaust to find these things either.

All the highest achievements you cannot even dream of are within you. And the work to accomplish those highest achievements you could never even dream of can only be done within you. And that work to achieve those things is effortless.

And it's completely under your control. Effortless doesn't mean it's not painful. Effortless doesn't mean it's not scary.

It can be the scariest thing because you have to give up all those things that you thought were real. All those things that you were thought were the best things, the highest things. All those need to be given up because they're all on the outside world and you can't take them in the inside world and you can't be in both places at once.

But the scariest of work is also the most freeing. And so in that way there's some difficulty you might say. Otherwise everyone would have it.

Otherwise it would be so easy that it's not even a thought. Of course, I'll go for that. To see it, to know it, to have it be revealed to you, to reveal it to yourself, that is in a way difficult and takes some effort.

It takes dedication. But once that's done, everything truly becomes effortless, out of time. Everything else becomes unimportant, easy, simple.

not even worth thinking about, let alone worry about. And if you think what could possibly be my purpose, my meaning in life, what am I here to do? What am I here to achieve?

What's better than that? What could be higher than that? And it's the same for all of us.

We don't need to go around in the world and find a problem in it and find bad people in it so that we can fight them so that we can change the world. So that we can make a name for ourselves. So that we can do something good for in the world only to appease our dreams and imaginations.

That's how people who look for their achievements, their ambitions, their works, their activities in the outward world. They need to find something wrong with it so that they can fix it. Otherwise, what are they here for?

What are they going to do with their life? And if you ever ask me, which many of you do, how to do this what I call the work of life because this is our true work, right? Again, there's our outward work, our work for money, for a living, whatever it might be.

And then there's the true work, the work of life, the work that all of this other work is for. How do I achieve this work of life? And there are as many ways to achieving that as there are people.

There are as many ways to meaning as there are people. But what I believe in wholeheartedly can be the tools and the path and the way for you to achieve this is reading and writing. And that's exactly why I started the book club like no other, which is just a newsletter.

We read Senica's letters right now and then we journal about them. They're perfect for this because they're only a few pages long, Senica's letters. And he always talks about some part of the work of life.

Always. It's amazing. And we read that with the intention of writing about it, which makes it which makes us read it in a whole different way, very closely.

And then we go on writing about it. Not necessarily about it, not a response or anything. We write about whatever it makes us think and we write in a way that convinces ourselves and develops these ideas.

And so I encourage you to sign up for it. Said accepting the universe. com.

It's the newsletter essentially because that's how I get to share my journal entry each week with you. That that way is the book club like no other. We're we're doing things together.

You write your journal entry. I write my journal entry and I share mine with you. And that way we're doing it together.

And it's never too late to start. All the past journal entries are on the website. You can start at any point at letter one if you want to.

Of course, the newsletter also includes my favorite quote of the week, reading recommendations. There's a new reading recommendation coming out today with this video. and any anything else that I feel like I need to communicate to you will come through there.

And truly, there's nothing better than reading and writing. There's nothing better than starting the inward work and to cease many of our outward so-called activities and to truly start knowing that by the knowing of which all things are known.