Staring out the office window from my cubicle into the Phoenix desert sun, I realized something that was mind altering. It wasn’t physical. It wasn’t taught to me in a book or classroom. It wasn’t doled out in a memo. It was just one of those ah-ha moments. In a flash, I realized every 5 minutes that I sat at a job I wasn’t passionate about was another motivating push to change my path.
I worked with financial advisers and their assistants from a mutual fund department. The job was a good job that paid well and was secure (at least my company was). The bi-weekly paycheck was no king’s ransom but a good sum nonetheless for any individual to live a comfortable life. However, comfort is the last thing I wanted in my life. I survived marathons. I ran the Doubleback Camelback workout in Phoenix for fun almost weekly. I was and still am not a stranger to pain. So comfort was the last thing I needed or wanted. Comfort only misdirected my future down a path of being unfulfilled.
Struggle is what I wanted and craved. Through struggling I have been able to survive many situations or figure out a way to conquer the opposing force. The motivation may have differed each time, but each was a chance to do, be, accomplish what I loved.
The key to finding the path I desired was having the motivation every 5 minutes at my cubicle to be doing something else. The frequency of this motivation may not have been every 5 minutes every day, but there certainly were days where the entire 9-5 was spent believing I was doing the wrong thing for me. Spending our lives knowing we are not doing what we love is wasting the opportunity to be attempting to do that which we love.
What you have to do is ask yourself if you are motivated and passionate every 5 minutes of (almost) every day to be doing what you do. If you wish you were a school teacher instead of an accountant then you should be doing all that is in your power to direct your future towards becoming a school teacher. The key is making progress and acknowledging that motivation forces you to accomplish what you would love to be doing.
David Damron
The Minimalist Path
Click here to get a copy of PROJECT M-31: Simply Your Life in 31 Days
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