good morning you lush lot, thanks for joining us today, especially as it’s a busy time of year, so let’s make it a worthwhile read for you, and let’s change your life, for good.
so, this morning, as we approach the end of another year, let’s talk about your epic tale, the tale that is your life journey, which, if you view it from 30,000 feet above, yes it looks like your life, and it looks just like one long continuous journey, and if you go up even higher, it looks just like that simple little dash on your tombstone between the date of your birth and the date of your death, happy thought huh!
but if you zoom in closer, you realise this epic journey is comprised of many what are called eras, and nestled inside those eras are lots of little mini adventures.
those mini adventures, strung together create eras, long spans of time that mark major thresholds, or thresholds that one crosses over in a lifetime, these eras put together end to end, which might be months or years or decades in length, each combining to create this epic tale in this totally continuous arc of transformation, that keeps you growing, developing and becoming wiser and more assured in who you are.
so here’s what’s exciting about understanding your epic tale this way.
first of all, you can have lots of little mini adventures.
and those mini adventures do not need to define your life.
they can just be that.
little adventures within an era.
experiments, thing that you just try, but if they don’t work out they really don’t need to define your life, and what’s also exciting is an era is just that, a simply defined span of time, and you can end an era and completely reinvent yourself in a new era, anytime you choose, it’s our choice, toxic relationships, end them now, bad relationships with alcohol or drugs, stop them now, big dreams, start them now, create a new era.
take the life journey of steve jobs for instance.
at a 30,000 foot view, you’d say he was the geezer that built the most valuable company in our world under his leadership, but if you zoom in you see all these separate eras that he went through, and then inside those eras, are the little mini adventures that he took as well.
there is the reed college era which saw him become fascinated with font types, and inspired much of the user interface of something that would become a future era.
while working at atari he took a mini adventure to india, in an attempt to find spiritual enlightenment.
there was also the mini adventure where he experimented with lsd and other psychedelics.
he lived in a commune for a mini adventure, and started to study zen buddhism as another mini adventure, and then another era began when he and steve wozniak started the home brew computer club, which was to become the seed of the beginning of apple computers, (see what I did there?) and that was to lead to the next era that put he and apple on the map, the mackintosh era.
and then yet another was forced on him as he was kicked out of his own company, which is when steve started the era of next and pixar, and his involvement with disney, and yet another era was born when he went back into apple in 1997, and a series of mini adventures were launched inside that era, namely the ipod, the iphone, the ipad, and apple retail shops.
then unfortunately, there was the era in which he battled with illness and then, sadly, his dash.
his epic tale came to an end on october 5th 2011, and as i approach my next decade of travel around the sun, understanding life like this for me is liberating in three ways.
one, nothing needs to be life defining, the definition of your life will be a collection of multiple eras, and, unless you do something memorably horrific, you will be remembered for one or two eras of your life that were most successful.
if we go back to steve, he had some weird, if not downright bad eras, yet the world knows him for the couple of eras he created genius, which shows that you get eras to get it wrong and fail, i know i have, loads in fact, but you can still be remembered for your successes, which kinda takes the pressure off i reckon, don’t you?
secondly, you can always end and begin again in a new era, anytime you want, that’s pretty freeing to know right?
if you don’t like an era that you’re in, end it, right now.
begin a new era.
you don’t need to restart your life, just the era that you’re in, in your life right now.
and number three.
we should have more mini adventures.
and seeing them as just that, mini adventures.
sometimes people get hung up on the idea that everything has to be so perfect, and completely aligned with who they are, or peoples perception of who they are, men especially, and that stops them taking risks, and in my opinion stunts growth, and limits us achieving our potential.
so as we progress towards 2023, maybe look at the era you’re in, and if it’s good, think about making it great, and if it’s not that good, look at how you can start a new era, and for the new year. create some mini adventures outside your comfort zone.
this week i met an artist, whose life partner was taken from her recently, and she is broken, struggling massively with the grief of never seeing her soulmate ever again, but she has started transcribing some of their text messages, often funny, often loving, often intimate, into art, and after a long conversation, we concluded he would still be her muse, and she is going to attempt to win the turner prize, a mini adventure within a new era, i can’t wait to follow her journey.
have a great christmas, and may 2023 be the best year of your life, and remember you can start a new era, whenever you choose, good luck.
blue skies,
jeff
