With everything that's going on in the world right now, it's understandable for people to question the signs of the universe. Are we being punished by Mother Nature or God (or whomever) for something we've done? Are these recent hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, and fires caused by climate change induced by our mistakes? Are all of these disasters resulting in the form of natural population control? What about the unnatural disasters? The terror and tragedies caused by human beings. From what we know, there have been mass shootings, social unrest, international political drama, and threats of wars arising weekly. With all of this going on, one of the most common questions and fears I've heard is: is the world ending?
The obvious answer is, I don't know. Although I joke about being psychic and having predicted earthquakes, I can't actually tell you whether the world is ending or not. What I can say, however, is that the world is changing and evolving every single day, just as we are. For now, let's play a game of hypotheticals.
Hypothetically, let’s imagine we were told the world is ending in 3 months. What would we do differently? Take a second to think about that within your own life. Look in the mirror and observe yourself. Who are you today versus who you say you’re going to be before its time to go? There's no right answer, just be honest with yourself. Are you relatively content with the path you're on and the direction in which you're heading? Have you taken enough time to get to know yourself? Now, this isn't one of those posts that suggests quitting your job and traveling the world. Even though I've had spurts of wanting to do that in my life, that's not what I'm here to preach. I don't want to teach anything. I merely want to ask questions that may force us to think more deeply about our own lives.
Let’s pause for a moment and address the elephant on this blog: MONEY. The tricky thing about life is that regardless of what we do or don’t do, we have to find a way to balance the idea of money. How much do we need? How much extra do we want? What are we saving for rainy days? What are we compromising today for a potential better tomorrow? Are we still doing what we're doing for the right reasons, or have we fallen off of our track? Again, these questions are posed to help us introspect and make sure we're honest with ourselves.
Back to the hypothetical: if the world is ending in 3 months, what do we do differently? Do we do anything differently? Let's assume for a second that everyone works a 9am-6pm schedule right now. Whether you have your own business or a job, let’s say work consumes 9-6. In this hypothetical, with the world ending, let us say everyone leaves their jobs and spends 9am-6pm with their family or traveling. The purpose of this post is to see whether we would change our 6pm-9am. That's 15 hours per day of "free time," minus approximately 8 hours of sleep leaving us with 7. Are we currently using that time efficiently? If not, how can we start using it more efficiently?
The second hypothetical is much more realistic since we don’t actually know when the world is going to end. Let’s say we’re told that the world won’t end anytime soon, and we have our entire lives ahead of us. Do we change anything? I've only been around for 30 years, and in my time we've already had several false alarms about the world ending. There was the Y2K situation (which proves that human-created technology cannot end the natural world, which is far more superior than us). There were Nostradamus’ predictions after 9/11 about the world potentially ending. Then the Mayan calendar was supposed to cause the end in 2012. Now we're in 2017 and the world is seeing an unfathomable number of record-breaking natural disasters, which is sparking up the conversation amongst people who believe in the book of Revelation. But the truth is, we're all imperfect human beings with finite minds, and we don't have the supernatural ability to tell the future. Instead of worrying about what we can’t control, we should focus on what we can.
Seemingly we don't have answers for the future. Coincidentally, the past is behind us too. The few minutes you spent reading this post are gone and will never come back, but I want to make it worth your while. Try letting the next moments be more meaningful than earlier today. Be extra aware and have a heightened conscious for the next few minutes. Slow down and take everything in. I'm not telling you to literally stop and smell the flowers (unless that's your thing), but I am saying to be more conscious of your existence within this infinitely complicated algorithm we call life. Spend less time zoned out or in your mind and simply enter the moment. Contrary to what authoritative figures told us while growing up, go ahead and talk to strangers. Strike up a conversation and be friendly. Make people smile and laugh. Throw yourself in the mix of everything going on around you.
We have approximately 9 hours that are spent working throughout the day, so firstly, make sure you're morally okay with what you do to make money. If you're okay with it, then you can sleep at night, which results in the opportunity to feel peace and share that with those around you. Secondly, try being respectful of time (because it's all we really have), so if you're physically at work, be there mentally as well. If you're physically spending time with your family, tune in mentally to whatever is going on around you. Make those remaining 7 hours of your day a time of absolute bliss. Make conscious decisions about what you want to do with your time and DO it. Whole-heartedly, whole-mindedly.
It's okay that we're imperfect. I'm just as guilty of being distracted as the next person. I catch myself mindlessly scrolling through social media quite often. I also tend to notice myself zoning out from time to time. I'm highly imperfect, and that will never change, but it's okay. All we can do is try to be better, make more of a conscious effort, look inward, and most importantly, be honest with ourselves.