Have you ever thought of what it takes to truly live? Not just exist, but live a life of worth? Have you ever just woken up and thought that today, what you do matters? Have you ever pondered your day before sleep and wondered at how you survived the challenges you faced and relived the excitement experienced in the most trivial of tasks?
If you have answered no to more than one of these questions it may be time to reassess your values. Are you a victim or responsible for yourself? Not just in words but everyday deeds. If a picture is worth a thousand words than an action is worth a million intentions. Life is about action. To live is to risk. We risk being outcast. We risk physical harm. We risk emotional scars. We risk rejection. But for that risk we gain knowledge, experience, connection, growth, love, and acceptance.
Life is precious and the most precious gift we as humans have to offer is the gift of our time. Every second, of every day…every second, of every night is a chance to live. We all have a finite amount of time on this plane of existence so it should be treated with reverence and respect.
I invite you to live a life of conscious collaboration.
Implicit in this challenge is the aspect of being present, conscious of each moment. Said differently, I invite you to not be a walking zombie, someone who ambles through life passively, expecting everything but actively engaging only when forced or out of necessity. Also implicit in this challenge is the aspect of engaging others, of sharing experience, of collaborating for a common good. It may be a cliché but 1+1 can equal 3 under the right circumstances. Life is a gift from god, and my personal belief is that god wants us to share this gift to enrich not only ourselves but also those we engage with.
Here are a few things worth doing (preferably often):
- Enjoy a cup of coffee or tea or juice or water with a loved one outside as the sun rises
- Sweating through the physical exertion of building something with a community of like-minded people for those less fortunate
- Sharing in the selection, preparation and indulging of a sumptuous five course, three hour meal with family and friends (sans laptops, tablets and smartphones)
- Skinny dipping in an ice cold mountain stream, luke-warm ocean or natural hot spring with friends and total strangers
- Indulging in a bottle of wine, apple cider or water, along with fresh fruit and ripe cheese with a loved one while the sun sets (preferably over a body of water if available)
- Dancing around a campfire to the beat of music only you can hear with 100+ people you mostly don’t know
- Try to live, eat and act like the locals when traveling
- Camping or just living off of the land for longer than three days and nights
- Get lost on purpose just to see what fate has in store for you; just be careful in strange cities of obvious dangers
- Stargazing on a cloudless night in the middle of nowhere that you got to after a hike through nature (mountain, desert, beach or plain)
- Just make something…anything…remember that one man’s trash is another’s art
So please take time to remember that to live is to risk. To live is to create. To live is to love. To live is to be present and responsible for you first, family second and community third. If you’ve made it this far and are still wondering what this has to do with marketing, then let me be crystal clear. Successful marketing comes from calculated risks. It happens when opportunity meets preparedness. It happens when you listen and create from a place of conscious collaboration.
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