Stop Living the Lie; Start Living the Life

Stop Living the Lie; Start Living the Life
by Joshua Millburn
You thought I was crazy
Admit it, you thought I was crazy, didn’t you?
I heard what you said about me when I quit my six-figure job to pursue my
passions.
You thought I was crazy when I said I was going to be a full-time fiction writer.
He’ll never make it, and He’ll be back in a few months, and God he is stupid! That’s
what you said, isn’t it?
You thought I was crazy when I got rid of all my junk and became a minimalist.
What the hell is a minimalist? Why would anyone want to get rid of all that stuff? Who
the hell doesn’t own a TV? And I think he’s going through some sort of quarter-life
crisis.
You thought I was crazy when I started a website with my best friend to help
other people live a life of freedom. You said, It sounds like a gimmick, and they sure do
look gay in those pictures together, don’t they?
You thought I was crazy when I completely changed my diet and started
exercising like it was a religion.
You thought I was crazy when I started an experiment and refused to buy any
physical items for an entire year.
You even thought I was crazy when I started donating a lot more of my time to
charities like soup kitchens and building homes for the poor. You couldn’t understand
why this would be important to me.
But wait. What if there’s something wrong with you?
Perhaps I am crazy
Fine, call me crazy. If living a more meaningful life– one that is filled with
happiness and passion and freedom– is crazy, then I am utterly insane.
But let’s be honest for a moment– you wish you could do it too. You said so. Even
if you didn’t say it to me directly, your body language said it for you. I can see it in you–
in your eyes and the expression on your face. Other people can see it in you too. They
can see through you.
You wish that you could quit your soul crushing job. You wish that you could
pursue your passions. You wish that you could get rid of the stress in your life. You wish
that you didn’t give so much meaning to your possessions. You wish that you could
reclaim your time and live a life of conscious freedom.
The truth is that you could do any of those things, and you know that you could,
but you won’t. At least not until you, as Julien Smith likes to say, stop acting like a
fucking pussy.
You want it to be one way, but it’s the other way
I remember watching this great scene from the acclaimed HBO TV series The
Wire. The character, Marlo Stanfield, is a drug dealer, and a disgusting, reprehensible
human being. But he has one incredibly powerful virtue: he knows exactly what he
wants in life, and he is willing to walk the walk to get it.
In the scene, a rent-a-cop confronts Marlo outside the store, and after a moment
of tension, Marlo calmly reminds him that “you want it to be one way, but it’s the other
way.”
You want to be the one with the power. But you’re not.
You want it to be one way– you want to be happy, free, and have the right to
pursue your passions and live a more meaningful life– but it’s the other way. You choose
to live the life that you’re living, and don’t change even though you think you want to.
So you hate what you do– you hate your job or your physical health or your debt or your
depression or your life in general– and I’m crazy?
You can’t be serious.
I’m living a more meaningful life now. I’m pursuing my passions (writing both
fiction and non-fiction). I’m in the best shape of my life. I’m more free than you. I’m
more passionate than you. I’m growing as an individual. And I’m contributing to other
people in a more meaningful way.
And you’re doing what? You’re just talking.
Make change a must
It’s not too late to stop talking and get up off your ass.
Do something.
Take action.
Turn off the TV.
Shutdown your computer.
Get out there and act.
Or you could just sit back and do nothing. You can just keep being you, content in
the vast pool of mediocrity.
And you can continue down your current path if you’d like, and if you work really,
really hard you can end up there—six figure job, all the stuff you can imagine—which on
the surface didn’t look too bad. Hell, I looked really successful too.
But displaying status symbols is simple. They’re trophies—but I wasn’t actually
successful at all. I had luxury cars and a house with more bedrooms than inhabitants, a
bunch of gadgets I hardly used, clothes I didn’t wear, and all the trappings that our
heavily-mediated culture tells us that we should have (and a nice size debt to accompany
those “accomplishments”). But I wasn’t happy at all, which is perhaps the true measure
of success.
The people who envied my life didn’t see the other side, they didn’t see the life
behind the curtain. I did a good job of masking my fear, my debt, my anxiety, my stress,
my loneliness, my guilt, my depression. I displayed a impressive facade, revealing only
what I thought the world wanted me to reveal.
Worst of all, my life was void of any real meaning, and it felt as if I was flying in
ever-diminishing circles.
Not too long ago, I was you. I was that guy: Joshua Fields Millburn, the unhappy
young executive. But then I did three things to change my life:
1. I made the decision to change my life.
2. I made that change a must instead of a should.
3. I took action.
I’m not saying that it’s easy, and sometimes you’ll be terrified by the changes
you’re making, but it’s so much better than the alternative. It’s so much better than
walking with the living dead.
It’s not too late for you. Make the decision to change, make it a must, and take
action. You deserve to be happy. You deserve a better life.
But if you refuse to change, then perhaps you deserve the life that you already
have.