What do you want, deep down? Contentment? Peace of mind? Fulfillment? Who are you in your ideal scene? I always get a picture of strolling peacefully around a quiet yard, feeling perfectly content, having no immediate demands on my time. Someone fulfilled, living with grace, ease, and lightness.
This ideal life may be much easier to achieve than you think.
Once we learn a few keys and apply a few tools, we can take a shortcut to success: We can have the fulfilling life we dream of now, in this moment. We see that the necessary work is inner work – and that makes it much easier than doing all that outer work we thought we had to do. As Eckhart Tolle put it, when we get the inside right, the outside takes care of itself.
A great key to this inner work is given in The Power of Now. It's worth repeating until we remember it, and live it:
To offer no resistance to life
is to be in a state of grace, ease, and lightness.
– Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
When we offer no resistance to life, a great shift happens in our awareness, and in our whole physical, mental, and emotional being. Eckhart uses three beautiful words to describe what happens: Grace, ease, and lightness.
Aren't these the things you want in your ideal scene, ultimately, underneath everything else?
What good is being a millionaire if you're miserable? What good is having a great deal of stuff if you are constantly agitated, or endlessly driven to get more stuff, and fix that stuff, and maintain that stuff, and never find the time to relax and enjoy life?
No one on their deathbed has ever said, "I wish I would have made more money." No one on their deathbed has ever said, "I wish I would have spent more time at the office."
We are all going to be on our deathbeds far sooner than most of us wish. Are you going to have regrets? What can you do today to live your life in a way that will allow you to die peacefully? These questions are not morbid – they lead us to discover what is truly important in our lives. They lead to a life well-lived.
James Allen was, as usual, tremendously insightful about this:
The more tranquil we become,
the greater is our success, our influence,
our power for good.
– James Allen, As You Think