Contempo Philosophy

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Total Reading Time: 4 minutes.

The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love in his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he’s always doing both.
– James A. Michener

 

What Is a Master in the Art of Living?

This quote changed my life. It doesn’t have to change your life, but I think that there’s something we can all learn from this concept. What is a master in the art of living? At the end of the day, that’s what the most of us are looking for. We want to master this process, this journey of what we’re all here to do, right?

We want money. Many of you want fame. Many of you want great relationships. You want a sense of fulfillment.

There are so many drivers we all have, right? But really what we’re looking for is to create a level of mastery.

The reason I love this quote so much is that he ends it with “to leave others to decide whether he is working or playing.” We’re talking about playing for a living. What a beautiful concept, right?

What Would You Do If Money Were No Object?

That doesn’t mean you have to be stuck in one field for your entire life. What it does mean is that you have this opportunity to really go deep and become a master at one thing.
An example would be the way a doctor becomes a master of medicine or master of the body or whatever their specialty is. You have that opportunity as a solopreneur to do the same thing. Instead of jumping from idea to idea, opportunity to opportunity, shiny object to a shiny object, why not play for a living? Why not be a master in the art of living?
Why not choose a field or focus in which you can develop mastery?

The reason I think it’s important is simple: if you’re not growing, you’re dying. This is nature at the end of the day, right? Anything that is not blossoming and growing in this world is dying.
So you — as a human being — if your brain is not growing and expanding you’re dying.

Be a Lifelong Learner

And so what you need to be focused on is being a lifelong learning. This idea of education never ends. You never stop learning, you never stop growing, and you need to be committed to that.

You need to get addicted to the idea of learning within your craft because the more expertise you develop, the better you get at what you do, the bigger of a fee you can charge for your products and services. You can be the best when it comes to something, and then you can really blossom in your career and with your craft.

Find a resource that really goes deep that takes someone’s work of five to 10 years and goes deep into this topic. This is the reason why books are so valuable. Think about it. It takes years to write a book for most people. It takes a decade of life experience to even feel you’re ready to write a book for most people.

You’re condensing someone’s life experience into two hundred pages. In one or two sittings, you can absorb all this information and the best of what this person knows.
Let’s say you really want to get into neuroscience and you want to do this without going to school. Why not pick up a great neuroscience book by a great author and dive in. What’s going to happen is, within this book you’re going to be led to other books because you’re going to see who the inspiration and role models are for that person because they’re going to mention them as resources within the book.

It’s like a tree. They’re going to mention people that they’ve learned from and who their mentors are.
That’s going to lead to your second book, and your third book, and your fourth book. We’re going to go down an endless rabbit hole of lifelong education.
And that is exactly what you should do to become a master in the art of living.
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Photo credit: Living colours — CC license

 
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Text Version
Total Reading Time: 2 minutes.
If we a take a closer look at the people we call genius, the ones that have achieved greatness throughout their lives, we often find that they grew up in a disadvantaged matter.
Incredible people like Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Charlie Chapin, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, J.K. Rowling, and many more had difficult upbringings. Whether it be poverty, a learning disability, family issues, or the way they grew up — there was some sort of disadvantage they had to fight against.
This led to two things: hunger and curiosity.
These two characteristics are what pulled them by a purpose that created their greatness and genius.
If there are two things that we could do, it would be to develop those two traits: curiosity and hunger. But so many of us grew up in a society where we’re just like everyone else.
We have all our basic needs, wants, and desires that are taken care of from a young age. Your parents were probably good to you and you grew up with enough money and all the toys you wanted.
You may have never experienced true hardship or disadvantage.
But yet, when we take a closer look and read books like Mastery, we see that this disadvantage is what created the positive effect in their lives.
So, if there’s one thing that we could truly do, it would be to create constraints to make things more difficult for ourselves (as odd and counterintuitive as this may seem).
To draw the line and say, “these are the resources I’m going to work with” so that things can intentionally be a little bit more difficult.
This disadvantage will drive us to do more and be more and to aspire to be like those that came before us that did reach that level of genius.
Because, after all, a person that’s not being pulled by something bigger than themselves — a person who’s only seeking to achieve for themselves — isn’t going to get very far.
When the going gets tough, when the obstacles show up, you give up.
The difference between the disadvantaged that achieved greatness and everyday people is that their purpose, their hunger, and their curiosity is what drove them to succeed.
Not for themselves only, but their friends and neighbors. And maybe even for the sake of humanity.
 

Resources

1. Mastery – Mesmerizing. Robert Greene’s Mastery is a masterpiece. A beautifully researched book with illustrative and inspiring stories that will have you clinging to every word. Your eyes and mind will open.
2. Flow – This is more than a book. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the global leader in positive psychology, delivers his pioneering manifesto based on decades of research to show people how they can get the most fulfillment and enjoyment out of life. Read it.
3. The Talent Code – People really seem to love this book, it’s very highly rated. I personally didn’t, but I did find it useful.

 

 
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Text Version
Total Reading Time: 1 minute.
If you don’t absolutely love your life and love yourself, there may be two core reasons why this is happening.
The first reason is that you have a life inside of you — a version of yourself — that is unlived.
You have a life that has been unexpressed, and you’re resenting yourself because it’s living inside of you, this dream, this goal, this other life; and you’re not allowing it to blossom and be out in the world.
The only other real core reason that this is possible is that you do not see the magnificence of what you already have, and that is literally life itself.
You are not witnessing. You are not present to see the beauty, magnificence, fascination and endless curiosity that is possible in this world.
Don’t let that life die inside you and don’t fail to see the magnificence of what you already have.
Follow this and you will truly love your life.