Another prompt today from #Trust30. If yesterday’s from Chris Guillebeau got you excited about travel, Jonathan’s today will get you excited about life.Come Alive – Jonathan Mead
Life wastes itself while we are preparing to live~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
It was too good of a quote to not write again.And to think about.And to live by.Jonathan asks us to stop preparing to live and do what actually makes us come alive. It’s one of the most difficult things to start doing but is one of the most rewarding when you get some momentum going. Part of the job is to create a To Stop list. It’s impossible to do simply add new things to our already busy lives. We must remove things that are not very important and replace them with activities that are much more fulfilling.There are so many things my life that I’ve been trying to eliminate and replace with activities and ideas that get me excited. One of the biggest things I decided not to do was watch TV. I watched TV most days before I left for Australia in 2009. After reading about what was possible when you make that small lifestyle change and seeing that I never missed it once while travelling, I decided to stay away from it for good. I do watch movies once in a while when I’m feeling burnt out or sick. It feels good to get lost in the story of a good movie sometimes.Another thing on my To Stop list is wasting time on the computer. I have so many small pieces of time during the day I could be using to create useful things. Most of the time it’s just spent checking email, Twitter and Facebook. I have this mental block against doing work on the computer before I’ve checked my messages. I’m not sure why. It’s become a habit that I forget about sometimes. I’ll get on the computer and 30 minutes later instead of doing something useful, I’ve checked a few messages. Most of the email and messages are small and quick to answer but they all lead to a time-sucking hole of looking at other websites.I found when I started running in the mornings, it helped to get myself in the mindset of priorities. I would get up and everything I would be ordered by my priorities. Running and my health was a higher priority than work so it would get done first. Unfortunately work had a set time and that meant getting up earlier to run but I got used to it and learned to love the morning sillness.Remind yourself of your priorities when you sit down to do your work. Amazing work or the terrible infinite pit of time suck that is the rest of the internet? You choose.What’s in your way to coming alive? Can you put it on your To Stop list?