Saturday, January 11, 2025
One of the most famous lines in The Shawshank Redemption was “get busy dying or get busy living.” Can’t you sense that pull/push in you each morning? I tend to wake up in a fog of both sleep and wakefulness. I need to tip the scale, and each day is an opportunity to gravitate towards aliveness. Having the sun touch your body first thing is helpful.
I feel many of us live in this vague mid-range between sleep and wakefulness. We drudge through our day, we paw at our routines, and we never move beyond the catatonic state of being 80% asleep and 20% awake at best. Even worse are college students, who are merely .05% awake! I want to encourage you to move towards more aliveness. We tend to “pay” for life rather than to generate it. It is merely a perception of tipping the scale or reversing the charges. Do you give into the pull of sleepiness and drudgery or do you “take charge” and move towards zest, aliveness, and zing? This is your choice, daily.
If sleep is pulling you, you’re busy dying. It’s not a collect call to get busy living, but you must dig for it on a spiritual level. I start each day reminding myself I am zesty, alive, and enthused. I start by getting clear on wanting to be a positive person. Then I go for an invigorating walk, and do things that put me in the state of dwelling positivity. Then, once the scale is tipped and the charges reversed, I stay in that positive slant for most of the day. It’s so much better than being in a fog and being pulled toward the negativity and drudgery most people are fogged up in. Tip the scale and get busy living. Not everyone is doing that. Be different. Join me.
This is another example of Pareto’s principle.
I often struggle with this. I wake up with the thought of caring for myself, making this a “good day” and to focus on myself.
But it turns out that most of the times my habits get the better of me and the meditation I planned for the day is being forgotten once I indulge in what I call the circumstances of my live.
It causes me pain and when I feel it intensely I know what I have to do. I relax and detach from my thoughts, my problems, everything all together.
I wish I was able to do this daily and not only when the need for it seems obvious.
I know this is a little paradoxical, I already hold the answer to my “problem” but in the heat of the battle it slips out of my hands.
I don’t know why I am writing all of this but I wanted to thank you for your work, it inspires me deeply and hopefully the seeds you planted will grow someday.
I totally feel where you’re coming from; but since you recognize this in yourself, you are at the point of breakthrough. You will breakthrough. I did. It’s a matter of continuance and paying attention. You are already are. The seeds will grow. I promise.