Unless you’re incredibly enlightened (and as a follower of this blog, there’s a fair chance you may be), you have been fooled into thinking that this measly 4,000 weeks average lifespan statistic is a hindrance. You end up thinking, ‘I am me, in this body, in this time called life.’
In which case you’ll be cramming a lot in. You’re driven by thinking, I’d better score as many points, sleep with as many people, get promoted as fast as I can, and accumulate as much stuff as possible before I die.
I often start my school sessions with a show of hands: who wants to be happier? (a few) followed by who wants to be rich? (all of them, plus enthusiastic gasps and nodding). The modern world is programming us to mistake the trappings of materialism for signs of accomplishment. The mantra, insidiously seeping, is this: you have succeeded, so long as you have loads of stuff.
Yet we don’t often see a tombstone along the lines of, ‘Here lies Andy. Boy, did he have loads of stuff’. Invariably the engravings are more about your qualities and what your life meant to those left behind.
I appreciate that it can be very hard to take your foot off the accelerator of materialism. Rather than foot to the floor, why not accumulate some new thinking, via Andy’s new book. The strapline says it all; how to flourish in a crazy world. If you don’t need it, I’m sure you know someone who does?