What do earning passive income, traveling the world, finding your purpose, achieving your dreams…and doing nothing have in common?
They are all part of the freedom equation.
On a recent podcast at The Voluntary Life, Jake talks about the idea of “how much is enough?” which is something I’ve been thinking about lately. Some people want to make x amount of money and then they will be happy. That rarely works out. Check out these people whose lives were ruined by winning the lottery. If money is the motivator behind what you do, there will never be enough.
Let’s all be free and live free and travel the world and make borders vanish (along with the banksters!) and have income coming in at all times! This is all great but nonstop “busyness”, work for work’s sake, and doing tasks that could easily be outsourced is a way to stay locked into an unfree world of your own, created by you!
One of the clients I’m working with on marketing for a project, Srikumar Rao, (called “Creativity and Personal Mastery“), has an exercise that he has people do at the beginning of his course where he has you just sit for 30 minutes straight. Doing nothing. No music, no book, no podcast, and no solving your problems in your head. Just sitting and being still for 30 minutes.
It’s amazing how this NEVER happens in my life, and I’m sure in most people’s lives! It’s a true test to see how free you really are in your days. I tend to have information constantly going in via podcasts, books, and blog posts. If I’m outside about 90% of the time I have earphones in my ears. If I’m inside I’m at the computer! It’s a constant borage of stuff that fills the dead air.
At times, I do not feel free in my days, and instead feel hectic and have too many things to do. Groceries are constantly low. Meals need to be prepared. Cleaning need to happen (at LEAST once a week!) Clothes to the dry cleaners. Run to the bank. Swing by the drug store. Pick up my mail. Do my laundry. God forbid something unexpected like a car issue happens! Then somewhere in all of that, work needs to happen. Funny to think that I used to watch TV too! Where does the time go?
ALL of this can be outsourced. I’ve been exchanging emails with “The Four Hour Physician” George Smolinski, MD who has created all kinds of freedom in his life via outsourcing. He will be on the Freedom Lovin’ podcast next week! It’s perfect timing as I plan to start getting these things taken care of and off my plate so I can focus on the more important things in life- like doing nothing, and feeling good about that!
The average man lives 37,739,520 minutes over 72 years. Women average 40,884,480 minutes over 78 years.
How many of those minutes are optimal to be doing chores, running errands, cleaning, or sitting in your car? To me, optimally, it would be zero. Life is short and meant to be lived with enjoyable activities that make you happy.
And sometimes that activity can be doing precisely nothing at all.
