Are You Living an ‘A’ Life or a ‘B’ Life?
Simply put, is your life Adventure, or Boring? ‘A’ or ‘B’?
Adventures make great stories. They’re wonderful in the telling, but while we’re living through them, they’re usually messy, inconvenient and uncertain. As Bilbo Baggins said, “Adventures tend to make one late for dinner.” This was just before he set off on the fabulous adventures in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit.
Now, I’m not going to claim that one life is any better than the other. But we all know which one is more interesting.
Novels about the guy who sat home are never popular. Autobiographies of the sister who didn’t get out and dare adventuresome things won’t make it to Oprah’s book club. And if a movie is made about a bland, boring person, it’s only after something drastically upsets her nice, safe routine and things get unpredictable that the movie starts. Sorry, but nobody cares much about boring people.
And when friends gather around, to whom do they listen most avidly? The brother who works in an office downtown, or the one who has traveled to 31 different countries, raced hot air balloons, and appeared in movies?
So I ask you again, are you living an ‘A’ life or a ‘B’ life?
If yours is a ‘B’ life and you truly are happy with it, then great. Keep up the good work.
If not… well then, you know what to do.
Begin changing stuff. Stop doing some of the things everyone expects of you. Throw some things out. Go do something different… something daring and “unlike you.” Take some chances, roll life’s dice, gamble a bit.
Of course I don’t mean you should suddenly lose all common sense and endanger yourself. But when you start changing things, there’s a huge, exciting margin before you ever get to the danger end of the scale.
When I sold nearly everything I owned and moved to Japan, the comment I heard most often was, “Man, I sure wish I had your courage.”
Courage? What courage? It took more to continue dragging through a yawn-filled life of drudgery.
The absolute worst that could happen was if I failed and had to come slinking back with my tail between my legs. And I’d done that a number of times before, so I already knew the “worst” was survivable.
Two years ago, when my wife and I gave away an entire houseful of personal belongings, furniture and appliances, and moved to Thailand, it was the same deal exactly. We knew it’d be survivable, so we went ahead and did it.
Where have you always dreamed of living? Who have you always wanted to love? What would be your ideal career?
And what’s standing between you and that ‘A’ life?
In almost all cases, the only obstacle is your own inability to say yes.
So what have YOU been saying “no” to? If, right now, you could say “yes” to the life you’ve always dreamed of, what would you be saying “yes” to? What would you be accepting?
I invite you to leave a comment below and tell me. I’d really love to know.
Cheers from my ‘A’ life in Thailand,
Charles
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Dear Charles,
As always, your articles send this tsunami wave inside me which I just cannot resist but to take action..
Thank you so much …
Keep writing , your doing a perfect job from your side in making this planet a beautiful place to live.
Thanks, Munir. It’s good to know you’re taking action. That’s part of the magic sauce in all greatness. Please do keep us posted on your progress – both the obvious victories and the victories that need a little further polishing (I have a lot of the latter).
Hey Charles;
On another post I wrote about how I met (attracted) my wife Maggie, using many of the list techniques you spoke about.
now for the rest of the story…
When I wrote my ‘meticulous’ lists, I never mentioned anything about kids. I was childless in my first marriage of 23 years. I had a vasectomy back in the mid-80′s so I knew I wasn’t going to have any of my own kids. They just never entered the equation.
Maggie was my dream woman in every way… PLUS, she had two daughters – one from an abusive marriage and another from an equally abusive relationship.
When I decided to go for the “A” life as you describe here, I really had NO IDEA of what I was really getting myself into. For sure, Maggie and I have what most would call a ‘dream’ relationship. We contrast in just about every way you can imagine, and we work extremely hard to understand and use our differences to make an exciting and satisfying life. I would have settled for that!
However, what makes my life truly “A” status is the later-life challenges of raising two young step-daughters (ages 13 and 6). As good as the girls are – they really are sweet – any parent knows that there are always challenges. Many, if not most, of the challenges Maggie and I face together deal with a lot of the ridiculous nonsense from the natural fathers. The older girl’s dad is very intrusive, wanting to control all aspects of our family. The younger girl’s dad is exactly the opposite, wanting as little to do with the child as possible.
Add all this to the already hectic family lives and career transitions for both Maggie and myself, and you have the makings of a “AAA” life.
I’ll be honest – and I’ve told this to Maggie on many occasions – if I had to rewrite my lists, I would definitely include NO kids.
But then again, as I look back over the last four years, I have to say that because of those two little angels, I have grown more during this time than my previous 52 years combined.
This gives me a great idea for my next article – “For Best Growth, Use Generous Amounts of Manure”. LOL
Living the “AAA” life in Toronto,
Russ
Isn’t it great that life hands us what we ask for OR something even better. What would adventure be without the unexpected? With kids in the house, you’ve got that for sure.