7 ways to a successful life

I imagine there are more than seven ways to live a successful life. But I also think it is of extreme importance to push the pause button every so often and take a look in the metaphorical mirror [or the actual one] and see how the life you are presently living measures up to the one you could be. So grab a cup of coffee [or some freshly squeezed organic kiwi and butternut juice, with cumin] and take a minute on each of these… and consider for a moment if your life could use some change…

I don’t know who Andy Singer is, but this cartoon shows that he gets it. The ‘Successful’ person is often viewed as the one who is working so hard and so cut off from family and friends and personal life passion [often in the interests of providing well for family and friends] that they have actually had the life sucked out of them. If what you are doing to make money is robbing you of all the things it was meant to provide, there might be some tough but necessary decisions ahead. It’s not too late to do something else.

Imagine how different your life will look at the end with a scorecard that reads, “Clocked 24000 hours on World of Warcraft” as opposed to, “Discovered cure for Ebola virus” – now for most of us, what we actually end up achieving or being part of will be significantly somewhere in the middle of that spectrum. I am personally hoping for a life that ends up closer to the Ebola virus side than the ‘became really good at useless skill’ side of things.

I hate that somewhere along the path of life, disillusioned adults seem to feel the need to tell young people to stop dreaming and believing that change is possible. Perhaps it is whatever convinced you of that, that is actually the real reason your dream wasn’t realised. Aids and the conflict in Gaza and extreme racism and human trafficking do seem like such huge impossible mountains to climb but if you were able to sit with someone from the 1800s for sixty minutes and just see their reaction when you try to explain to them things like airplanes and mobile phones, google glass and microwave ovens, I imagine you might start to consider what other impossible things are waiting to be achieved by those who refuse to believe they can’t be done.

Very simple but very profound.

Is there something you have always wanted to do but never [yet] got round to starting? It is probably not too late.

Is there something you started and then life got in the way and so it was pushed into a folder, or to the back of a drawer and you simply need to carve some time and get it out and really push through and finish it?

I really love this one. It is true. Time makes no apologies. Sentences that begin with “I’ll do that when…” are so fraught with danger, because they anticipate or hold out hope that life will somehow slow down or become easier or less cluttered. It begins with leaving school, then finishing university, then getting married, then having our first child, then when my child starts school and and and… Don’t wait until. Start now. If you are feeling changes need to be made, get going with them. Seize this particular day. Seize it now.

What a stupid saying. And what an incredible way of summing up the point of what it should be. Are you doing something with your life now that matters? Because you don’t get a do over!

Above all, this is what life is meant to be about. Loving God and Loving people is all good and well. But there needs to be some action involved as well otherwise it is all just a pretty [and useless] Hallmark Cardin your brain. And when I talk about being significant and doing significant things, that doesn’t mean all of us will be curing Aids or reaching lost people groups or affecting the whole world. For some of us being a parent well is a significant thing. For others of us it might be affecting a local school or community. Maybe even just the people on your street or in your apartment block.

I hope you found something in here useful. I hope this will encourage you to greater success. Now go.