Is it time to make a change in your life?

I recently watched a 2015 movie called “Room”. The tagline for the movie is as follows: Held captive for 7 years in an enclosed space, a woman and her young son finally gain their freedom, allowing the boy to experience the outside world for the first time.

I don´t want to say that I “enjoyed” the movie because it really wasn´t that type of movie. However, it has stayed with me and several of the points raised by the young boy in the movie were insightful and thought provoking.

We live in a world where we have machines to help with a lot of life´s repetitious jobs. We get up in the morning and there´s a coffee machine and a microwave to speed up the breakfast preparations; washing machines and dishwashers to do our “dirty work”; cars, buses, taxis, trains and, most recently, electric scooters to get us from Point A to Point B in the fastest possible time; escalators and elevators to save us the exertion of walking up and down stairs; mobile phones and computers to do a lot of the thinking and processing that we would previously have had to use our brains for; audio books save us the trouble of actually reading a book and book summaries with the main points if we don´t have time to listen to the entire book. Television is now “on demand” so we are no longer tied to the television company´s schedule. And the list goes on and on.

With all of these time saving and energy saving assistants shouldn´t it follow that people should have more free time and more energy to enjoy it?

A quote from the movie is “There's so much of "place" in the world. There's less time because the time has to be spread extra thin over all the places, like butter. so all the persons say "Hurry up! Let's get going! Pick up the pace! Finish up now!"

Something that I notice more and more is that people are distracted, hurried, stressed and tired. People don´t seem to have time to see the beauty around them. There isn´t time to reflect on the things that have real and lasting meaning. Many people have the feeling of living a “Groundhog Day” where their life is on a repeat loop and doesn´t have much variety. However, they keep going because they like to believe that things can´t function normally without them.

Have you ever been sick for an extended period of time? Did the world come to a standstill because of it? Was there an existential crisis because you spent time away from work? My guess is “NO”.

By redefining your priorities and choosing healthy habits you can actually increase your happiness. In our modern way of living we have forgotten that it is far more important to collect experiences and not things. With a mind-set shift you can live a simpler and content life. By adjusting your attitude you can choose to put your energy into thoughts and actions that actually benefit your life. My personal daily mantra reminds me that today could be the best day of my life or the last day of my life – I shouldn´t waste a second of it!

On our course, Think Communicate Lead, we encourage our students to make a choice to make a change:

Choose living rather than existing.

Choose happiness.

Choose family and friendship.

And most importantly, start today!