Cajun – Fixing Your Life, Part I

Originally posted on Cajun’s Blog.

Are you in control of your life? Most people would answer yes to that question even though they’d be surprised to know just how much of their life is controlled by others. Are you working your dream job? Are you living in the one place you’ve always wanted to live? Have you found the woman (or women) that completes you? If you do not have, or are not working towards these things, then I’m sorry, you’re not in control of your life. But why? Maybe you have kids and your focus has turned to them, that’s fair, but wouldn’t the best example you could set for your kids be to have them know that you worked towards YOUR dreams and never settled for anything less? So why aren’t we taking control of our lives? The answer is simple; Fear.

There are two types of people in this world: creators and accepters. Think of it as a spectrum. Creators manifest the world around them, they exist in their own reality and tend to ignore things that do not agree with it. Creator’s will almost always take their own advice over someone else’s and tend to have a bit of an ego and a problem with authority. A creator’s sole purpose in life is to accomplish their goals; however impossible they may be, and as long as they remain focused, they will usually accomplish them. In essence, creators see reality as a piece of clay they can mould to their liking. Accepters are the exact opposite in a lot of ways.

Accepters tend to believe that reality is much more structured and concrete; there are rules that need to be followed. They accept and believe in common sense and that which is told to them by authority figures and the media (in general). They have dreams just like creators, but have learned to either accept them as illogical or unrealistic; or alter them to become obtainable in their structured logical view of reality. An accepter’s reality is ruled by fear, the fear of being an outcast, the fear of the repercussions from breaking the rules, or maybe even the fear that they’re completely wrong. The funny thing is that almost everybody starts out as a creator.

So which one are you? Remember how I said to think of this as a spectrum? Well you may find that you have qualities of both. As children we start off as creators, we believe that the world is our oyster; we can be and do anything we want. As we get older, we are pressured by those around us to conform to the logical structures of our economic society; we go to college, we get a “respectable” job, we pay our taxes. Since our view of reality is shaped by our experiences, which in turn shape our beliefs, we start to believe that this “new” reality is the only one and that our childhood dreams were just that, dreams. So we abandon them…and we become bitter.

Let me tell you something, never accept a reality in which your dreams are impossible. There are only two ways you can live your life: by your own rules, or by someone else’s. Whose do you follow? Let me relate to you a personal experience of mine that illustrates this very conflict.

There was a time in my life, much like everybody else, where I was forced to get a job I didn’t like in order to survive. I was fresh out of film school, and after a series of failed careers in the film industry I resorted to applying to a sales job so I could pay the bills while I searched for my real dream job. I quickly realized that working 8 hours a day and trying to fit in a social life left little time for me to “search for my dream job” and even if I did find it would I have enough free time to even work towards obtaining it? Faced with this as well as the growing bitterness I had towards my sales job I gave myself an ultimatum: Either go after a job you actually want or resort to working a job you hate and hope that someday something better comes along. Now, this wasn’t just one of those moments where I decided to quit my job for something better, no, I had full intention to resort to living on the street before I’d work another job that I hated. So what happened?

I went a whole year without a job. The whole time I was completely content even though I always had bills and rent looming over my head. I figured that if things turned REALLY bad, I could always pack up my bowie knife, hatchet and survival kit and go out and live in the woods off the grid where i’d probably be happier anyways. There was many a day when my roommate would sit me down, ask me how much money I had, and then ask how I intended to pay rent (which was usually due a few days later) I would always answer the same way; “I don’t know” with a mischievous smile. The strange thing is that every month something would happen that would enable me to pay my bills and rent. Government screwed up taxes in my favour, win on a lottery ticket I got for my birthday, win a film festival I didn’t even know I entered. It was always something, and I never once doubted that I wouldn’t be able to cover my bills, I always just believed that things would work themselves out. At the end of that year I had the job that I wanted (same one I have now) and felt great knowing that not even the economic pressures of “reality” stopped me from obtaining it.

Now, I’m not saying that you should go and quit your job and everything will be fine and dandy, obviously that’s a stupid idea. What I’m saying is that you shouldn’t let fear make your decisions for you. DO NOT ACCEPT the negative things that are running your life. There’s 3 steps to getting your life where you want it to be:

1.Visualize how your life would be better.

2.Figure out what you need to do in order to accomplish that.

3.Commit yourself to doing it.

Understand that you’re going to have to overcome self-induced hurdles at every one of those steps. Rationalization is going to creep in and scale back your goals, doubt will claw at your confidence and fear will drive you to abandon. Expect these things to happen, and be stronger than them. You’re working towards obtaining your own happiness and nothing should stop you in your pursuit of that, not even your own logic.

Stay tuned for the second part of this article where I will go over how to manage the impossible task of achieving your desires.