More to Life?
Birth of Clarity #13
Welcome back to the Birth of Clarity newsletter.
It’s been a long time!
If you’re wondering why you are receiving this email, then please take some time to reacquaint yourself with the newsletter via the archive.
The Birth of Clarity newsletter has been around since 2019 and has evolved throughout the years. In order to dispense with formalities, I have outlined the new incarnation of the newsletter here.
I hope you stay with me so we can continue this journey together.
There has to be more to life than this, right?
This is a question I feel is extremely important to ask, and not necessarily from a 'bigger picture' point of view, although it's still a valid question, but rather from a day-to-day life perspective.
What can we do to improve our life? Or more importantly, what can we do to experience more of life?
If we get stuck in our comfort zone, how are we going to experience all that life has to offer?
Life should be about challenging yourself. It should be about experiencing new things. Exploring everything within this world.
There is so much that life has to offer. So many places to see. So many people to speak to. So many opportunities to do something you've never done before.
I know there is more to life than the way I'm currently living it.
I'm not one to stay in my comfort zone but being a parent sometimes makes you accustomed to 'playing it safe'.
I love to adventure with my son but I'm always aware of the things he likes and during the stresses of day-to-day life, sometimes it's easy to do the things we know.
The tendency to stick to what we know is usually out of fear of danger. Fear of the unknown.
When you have kids you want to keep them safe. Do things that make them happy. And doing something new doesn't always guarantee either.
But there IS more to life than the things we are comfortable with and it's important to remember that.
It's important to try new things and broaden our horizons.
I feel, at some point, we are all given a chance to break free from our comfortable lives and challenge ourselves. And when these situations arise, we need to grasp the opportunity with both hands.
It's time to break free from the 'easy life' and start doing hard things. Things that will make us grow. Things that may make us uncomfortable. Things that challenge our beliefs, our minds, our bodies, our souls.
Our chance to grow as individuals is there for us to seize. And seize it we must.
Before I go, I will leave you with the “Tale of the Monk and the Cow”:
Once upon a time there was a Zen master who once a year visited the lands in the region where his monastery was located. One day, while walking in the countryside with a disciple, he suddenly came across a humble wooden house, inhabited by a couple and their two children. All were poorly dressed, in dirty and torn clothes. They had bare feet and both the house and the surrounding land showed a condition of extreme poverty.
The teacher and the disciple were welcomed by the family, but with extreme regret the father said to the teacher: “We are poor, we only have to offer you a soup and to do this our two children will not be able to have theirs. All we have is a cow that gives us milk every day. We need part of the milk to live, the other part we sell to be able to pay the bills. In this way we survive.” The master and the disciple stopped for dinner and at the end, after thanking the family for their good heart, they said goodbye and left.
Moving away the master said to the disciple: “Look for the cow, take it to the top of the cliff and push it down the ravine.” The disciple was startled, because the cow was the only means of subsistence of that poor family, but he obeyed the master and with great regret pushed the cow over the precipice.
Years passed and the teacher died. One day the disciple who had become a monk decided to return to that place to find out what fate had reserved for that poor family.
Approaching that place he began to see cultivated fields, a beautiful house, a stable and many children playing in a beautiful garden. The monk was surprised, believing that the poor family had had to sell everything to survive. Then he asked the father of the family what had happened and he, with a smile replied: “We had a cow that gave us milk and thanks to that we survived. One night the cow fell off the cliff and died. So from that day on we were forced to do new things, farm the land, build tools and develop new skills that they didn't even know they had. In this way, albeit with a lot of effort, we began to prosper and our lives changed.”
Thanks for reading,