Be Healthier, Wealthier, and Happier

Do you know, if you are making more than $30K a year and have a roof over your head, you are no longer surviving?  Do you know over 90% of world population actually make less than $30K U.S. dollars a year?  Do you know that if given a chance, 90% of world population would be willing to switch their life for yours in a heart beat? So what are you still whining about?

To be honest, I didn’t know the above statistics and I whined and woke up everyday dreading the notion of needing to “fight” for my survival another day just like every one of you, until one day a mentor knocked the statistics into my thick skull and woke me up! (Thank god she did that!)

I realized all these time I have been fighting the wrong issue in my life.   I thought I need to do whatever it takes to survive and stay alive, but in fact I have blew past the survival stage long long time ago.  (OK, using the $30K example, I’ll probably say that I past the survival stage 2 years after I got out of school and started working full time).  I realized the problem isn’t whether I’ll survive or not (I already did, I am capable of surviving; it is a well proven fact; proven over and over again everyday), the problem is really the quality of life that I want issue.

It’s amazing that when I re-quantified the problem that I am spending my whole life solving, it gave me a new perspective, a lot of confidence and endless new possibilities.  Whew, the pressure of whether I’ll “survive” financially or not disappeared.  I am beginning to ask myself different questions.  For example:  “hum, so I’m actually already surviving really well, so what kind of quality of life was I really looking for?”  Yeah, I want to live in a mansion, I want to travel around the world,  I want to wear top brand clothing,….  But wait, is my current living that bad now? (Not really, I’m sure 90% of world population would switch their housing situation with me in a heart beat), can I stand traveling all year long and not sleeping in my own bed? (Not really).  Alright those top brand clothing, a few would be nice but actually it would be quite a burden to have to keep up with them just to keep up with the Jones… I see everything that I thought I MUST have for survival is really optional items; some worth my time and money to go after and some really didn’t.  Most importantly, NOTHING is worth pushing me below poverty line over it because they are ALL optional and they have nothing to do with my survival.  Well, I might not live like Paris Hilton or eating fillet migeon every day, hey but I am actually happy and I have many more options than I ever thought I have.  

The truth is that now I can go after what I really want with even more passion because it is no longer about surviving but to stretch myself to reach for my moon.  How cool is that?!

So how about you?  Are you really still surviving?  Maybe it’s time for you to start re-quantify your problem too! It’s amazing that sometimes this is really all it takes to solve a life issue; nothing more.