Creator or Consumer
Everyday that you walk this beautiful Earth is your life in miniature. Each day counts. All of your days combined together is the picture of your life. Every hour makes up your day and every day makes up your life. So how do you want to spend each waking hour and day of your life?
The thoughts you think, the words you speak, the food you eat, the company you keep and the decisions and actions you take each day are shaping who you are becoming and what your life will stand for. There is no such thing as an unimportant day or an insignificant moment.
So, in reality, when people say that they are just passing time, actually what they are saying is — I am watching my life pass by.
Each one of us is full of so much potential. Each one of us is capable of carrying out such great feats in our lifetimes. We are like a roaring generator of greatness and awesomeness. Nonetheless, how many of us live our life with the awareness of this truth? Our trifling day to day distractions have become so important to us that we have started enjoying and reveling in them and losing all our power, potential and greatness.
Most of us are simply living the same day every day. We are recycling the same thoughts and throwing it out in the world over and over again. At the age of 80 do you want to look back and see a vibrant eventful life of 80 years full of unique experiences and learnings or a life where each year was repeated 80 times?
Most people are pleasure seekers and love consuming. People hypnotize themselves with shots of social media, doses of binge watching, spells of alcohol and other substances. Only 5% of the total population are true creators and not pleasure seekers or consumers.
Successful people know that real success starts where comfort ends. You have to come out of your comfort zone. Malcolm Gladwell in his book, Outliers, states that it takes 10,000 hours to master something. If we were to believe this, it would mean that at 40 hours a week, these 10,000 hours would translate roughly into 5 years of dedicated and focused hard. Such hard work is impossible if you are confined to your reactive, comfortable, consuming and pleasure seeking lifestyle.
Real Titans push themselves to do things that frighten them in order to expand their creativity. Pleasure seekers don’t create monuments. ALL great athletes have endured the lonely light of the early hours of practice while the mediocre ones were busy sleeping.
Michael Jordan once said…
“I’ve missed over 9000 shots in my career, I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game’s winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
If you don’t have a burning passion, a fire in the belly for your dreams and desire, no matter what you do, you will always remain a consumer and not a creator. Most people don’t know anything about themselves. They don’t even know why they are doing what they are doing.
I ask YOU — What is your burning desire? What is your grand goal that does not let you sleep? What is your magnificent passion that wakes you up before the sun? What is your gigantic dream that you cannot stop watching even with your eyes open?
Do not be the 95%. Be the 5% who are willing to put 20000 hours and not just 10000 hours. Be the creator and not simply the consumer. Be the disruptor and not the pleasure seeker. Be a misfit rather than simply fitting in. Be the one who is awake and manifesting his dream into reality while rest of the world is busy slumbering. Unlearn to relearn — that’s the new mantra. Reimagine yourself, remake yourself and create the greatest version of yourself.
I love the eternal words of the great Robert Frost —
“The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.”