THE RAT RACE

Bonjour,

Je viens de recevoir ce courriel, que j'ai pris le temps de lire attentivement jusqu'au bout en me rappelant des moments (dans le passé) où j'avais eu envie d'en finir parce que je n'avais plus ni plaisir ni espoir. Il mérite d'être lu.

Désolée, je n'ai pas le temps de vous le traduire.

Créez une belle journée!
Lily

"Hello ,

This message is long by email standards. Please take a minute and read it
anyway. It's important.

I was supposed to have a meeting today with a friend of mine. At 7:45 a.m.
I received a call from his assistant that the meeting was cancelled. My friend
had to prepare funeral arrangements for his fifteen year old nephew.
The young man committed suicide last night. I'd met him just a few days ago.

I find myself sad and angry at the same time. I know better, but it's the
emotions that still come up. I just don't understand how we can keep creating
a culture where people are put under the perpetual veil of delusion that they
no longer have options, that they no longer have choices.

It's bad enough when it's adults, which is the situation I see routinely when I
speak. That bothers me. It's why I do what I do, why I write what I write. In
the hope that I can help them realize that they are not trapped, that there are
ways out of the madness.

For some reason, this situation seems exponentially worse. This kid was
fifteen, FIFTEEN, and he already had been convinced that there was no other
way to change his current reality, than to end his life. He believed he had
no choices.

So for your sake, for his memory, and for the sake of anyone that may be
within earshot if you are reading this out loud, here it is. YOU ALWAYS
HAVE CHOICES!!!!!!!

I know it doesn't always seem that way. I know it sometimes feels like there's
nowhere to turn. I get that. I've been there. I've lived in that space. But
it's a false truth. It is a residual impact of a culture in which we are led to
believe that happiness and satisfaction and fulfillment and worthiness comes
from the latest gadget, or the latest model sports car, or some other THING,
which in truth has nothing to do with being happy, fulfilled, satisfied, or worthy.

It comes from the perpetual array of fear thrown in your face each day.
Will your family be OK if you don't carry enough insurance...You could lose
everything you've worked for...What if you don't have enough retirement
savings...If your clothes, or your watch, or your cologne don't have the right
person's name on them, then you aren't special or worthy...

We think those things are just harmless noise in the midst of the chaos of most
people's everyday lives.

But every once in a while, you get a phone call at 7:45 and you realize it's
not just harmless noise. If we aren't careful it starts to become the basis for
our belief system, and since our beliefs dictate our reality, that "harmless"
noise starts to become a very real state of being.

We start living in a perpetual state of fear. Being me isn't enough... What I
have isn't sufficient-no matter how much it is that I have... I better hang on
tight to my possessions, because if I'm not constantly watching, someone will
take all that I've worked for... Better defer all my big dreams until I have
saved such a massive pile of money that I'm guaranteed to be OK when I
retire at 65. Except that the number is now being moved to 67, and then 71,
and then 75. And the size of the pile keeps needing to be bigger, and
bigger, and bigger...

And on most days I can remain in a state of calm as I explain that life doesn't
have to be that way. I can smile and give examples to reporters during an
interview about taking baby steps, and easing into a new state of being. But
today, I'm angry. Today, I'm pissed.

Because today it isn't about someone staying another year at a job that makes
them miserable. It isn't about someone struggling to make ends meet because
they were led to believe they could afford a lifestyle they never could. It isn't
even about helping a parent realize that it's OK to not work sixty hours per
week so they can instead spend some quality time with their children.

Today a young kid is gone. In just fifteen short years of life, he had become
so convinced that life was not fun and exciting and full of love and adventure
and purpose, that he took his own life. And that is just not right.

That screams out to me that we have a lot of work to do. And I put myself at
the top of that "We" list.

Last night I was going through my first book, The Why Cafe. And as I was
re-reading it, it brought back all the emotions I was experiencing when I
wrote it.

I had just come back from backpacking around the world for a year on $40
per day. I had experience freedom, seen cultures, met amazing people. I had
spent that year LIVING. Not preparing for living, dreaming about dreams,
wishing for different realities... I had been LIVING.

Which was a big deal, because before I left, I felt like I was slowly dying. And
almost everyone around me told me that was just life. But it wasn't. It isn't.

I implore you today, to remember you have choices. I implore you to live the
life you want to live, not a shallow reflection of it. And I implore you to help
someone else, especially a young person, to remember and do that as well.

John

Author- The Why Cafe, Life Safari, The Big Five for Life
www.bigfiveforlife.com
co-author- How to be Rich and Happy
www.howtoberichandhappy.com
John P. Strelecky"