How fulfilled do you find yourself these days? Do you even think about living life in a way that is fulfilling, or is it enough to just get by? Does it even matter?
Some people live a life of aspiration, some settle for goals, and still others are doing what they can to "just get by."
Lest we get distracted here, I have spent some considerable amount of my life "just getting by." When my family lost everything (dad died, insurance company denied coverage for his leukemia, insurance company denied death benefit, family forced into bankruptcy, etc) and I wound up living in my beater of a car, I had some experience with "just getting by."
Only, not really.
These were the 60′s and my version of getting by was working full time washing dishes in one of the campus cafeterias while scrambling to stay in school. I was also actively involved in the civil rights movement, although not nearly as conscious about the process as I might like to give myself credit for being.
One day, on a protest line, I wound up getting hit by a tear gas canister. As I picked it up and started to throw it back, I suddenly, and inexplicably, found myself looking back at myself, as though I were a spectator to my own activity. And then I heard myself screaming, "why don’t you a**holes love us?"
At that moment, life began changing in profound and meaningful ways. As wave after wave of awareness broke over me, I saw the contradiction of my life to that point: my message was love and peace, and my strategy was to yell, scream and throw things.
Up to that point, I had lived my life with a series of goals. Not the most meaningful goals, but goals nonetheless. Get a job (after the first bankruptcy). Make the track team. Win a medal. Get into college. Find a way to stay in college.
I was pretty good at setting goals and achieving those goals. And, still, life wasn’t all that fulfilling. Only I didn’t notice. There was always something else to do, some hurdle to overcome, and, of course, the challenge of just making it through another week.
And then that tear canister hit me, or perhaps more accurately stated, that tear gas canister awakened me.
Continue reading on the Huffington Post.
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