The problem is Corona has thrown off our rhythm and stalled our momentum. 

It’s time we got it back.

Imagine yourself as a hiker on the edge of a skinny mountain pass with sheer drop offs on either side. You’re paralyzed by the decision—do I stay or do I go?

The life lesson you’re wrangling with is this question: is the climb worth it? Is your life’s work really worth it? 

You can go back, and no one will really know. You can mentally and emotionally check out and slip into a derivative, cheap alternative to your life’s work. You could just focus on being profitable, making money your goal. You could circle the wagons and go with the flow.

You can have the appearance of success and purpose without having to do the arduous internal work of finding your purpose. 

So no, you don’t have to climb that mountain—but if you don’t, you know the experience of your life will be ruined.

And the experience is everything.

So you won’t be able to live with yourself if you lock in cruise control. 

But you’re not sure what will happen if you move forward.

Of course it’s hard. It’s life and death we’re talking about—and what it means to be alive is to feel like you’re making a difference in this world, and you’re doing it in your own unique way. 

What it means to climb that mountain and accomplish a life work is to get past the trivial data and look at the big picture of what is meaningful. You don’t judge it by the balance sheet or taxes or other performance-centric metric that you look at to make yourself feel good. You look at the world and find a calling, a creative contribution to its function that promotes its flourishing and makes you feel big inside, a calling bigger than you can accomplish on your own. The metrics will follow.

You pull an Einstein and crawl into your imagination and explore: “I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.” 

Get in there and find it, what it means to you, and get your research to back yourself up (we all justify our calling somehow!). 

Then, when you have absolute conviction, you flaunt it.

This is who you are; this is what you’re here for. Everyone else has too much going on to care, so you have to make them care—make it matter.

I’ve always heard that if the dog don’t wag his tail, no one will do it for him.

So let’s grab that skinny mountain pass by the scruff of the neck and show him who’s boss.

“It is never too late to be what you might have been.” George Eliot

Read this on the VDT.