The Next Step

Life isn’t what you envisioned. You’re busy enough, goodness knows, but when you stop and take a hard look at how your life is turning out, it’s really kind of, well, empty. So you’ve decided it’s time to change. If you’re like most people, you immediately turn inward, inspecting yourself.

You have asked yourself key questions:

What do I want out of life?

How do I want to feel when I get older and look back on my life?

And you have begun doing things that are important.

You take time for yourself now and then.

You are finding which things make you happy, not which things make others happy when you do them.

Because, in the end, you have to account for yourself.

You have made a great start at having a good life. But don’t stop there.

Think of it this way: most of us, when we decide to change our lives for the better in order to have the good life we have always wanted, have certain ideas. The main idea is that we should be kind of like a bathtub drain if we are going to be happy. Or, rather, like the water in the drain: it circles ‘round and ‘round itself until finally all the water ends up where it’s supposed to be.

That’s often how finding a good life is described. If you look inward, chase your dreams, do what makes you happy, you will have the kind of good life that you envisioned.

And turning inward, getting to know yourself, while giving yourself permission to enjoy life is a step toward happiness. But that’s all it is: a step.

Now, you need to take another step.

You need to get out of the drain occasionally, and stop circling around yourself all the time. Look outward, toward other people. This isn’t a new concept. It has been taught throughout the centuries: In the Bible—Jesus taught, “Do to others as you would have others to do you.” The idea of feng chi—good energy—flowing around and through us, as taught through Taoism. And, more recently, the concept of “random acts of kindness— causing someone else to want to be kind to another person. Because kindness is kind of like a good disease. Once one person spreads kindness to another person, it keeps spreading and spreading, and, as the saying goes, “Where it stops, nobody knows.”

But the point is, you aren’t going to reach the top of your game in life until you stop focusing only on yourself.

Most of us have watched small pets in cages run on a wheel. They will get on and run and run and run, accomplishing nothing. Just running. To have a good life, we must first step off the wheel and become reacquainted with ourselves.

Then, we need to reach out to others.

Don’t get me wrong. We still need to take time out for ourselves occasionally. But we need step two—taking time for others—too.

You might have to step out of your comfort zone the first few times you do these things.

But believe me, it’s worth it.

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