One Life Is Not Enough
You cannot be happy if you have only one dimension to your life, one personality and one source of validation. People who dedicate their entire existence to their business or job are worse off than people who have stumbled upon many things in life. The definition of success then becomes subjective.
When you are young and full of energy you want to make a lot of money. Nothing wrong with that. But as you grow older you start to realise that money is important, and so are other things. We fall into the wrong mental framework that we must chase only one thing in life, everything else can wait. And by default we pick money, because it affects so many areas of our lives.
We believe money affects most areas of our lives until we realise that love, or the absence of it, creates even bigger problems. Talk to a lonely person and you will notice that their entire worldview is so warped that you cannot even dare ask them to be optimistic. They suffer from anxiety, chronic melancholy and deep mistrust towards the world.
Now contrast that with someone who is genuinely happy but could not define happiness if asked. They are full of vigour and energy. They are cheerful and optimistic. They are not reckless, but they are not uptight either. Their definition of happiness includes money but does not revolve around it.
This is not about money being evil. It is not. It is about designing your entire life around the pursuit of money. For that, we spend the better part of our lives in corporate cubicles, in business meetings, in conversations with investors, and we forget that there is another side to life altogether. When was the last time you did something for yourself that completely transported you from the present into another world?
It is important to have an activity in your life that is entirely opposed to your routine. You need to expand your personality to embrace various facets of living. A data scientist drawn to surfboarding or sailing is someone who constantly pushes his mind outside the comfort zone. It not only liberates him from mundanity but also gives him a richer way to express himself.
We often see athletes gravitating towards things that are entirely contrary to their primary lifestyle. Cricketers frequently take to racing sports cars, exploring new cuisines, dabbling in art. That is one way they redirect their minds from the demands of routine towards something that elevates and refreshes their outlook.
This matters because these pursuits prevent your mind from burning out. You always have something to look forward to. They help you shed the weight of immediate responsibility while simultaneously broadening the reach of your comfort zone. And the finest part of it all is that you get to meet people from all walks of life.
That last point is crucial, because most people trapped in routine also suffer from loneliness. They converse with the same people they have always been surrounded by. They convince themselves they will never find anyone worthwhile because they have no time to seek new connections. Engaging in other activities opens that window. More opportunities translate into far greater chances of serendipity.
We work so that we can live our lives better. The goal of work is to enrich our lives, not to substitute for them. Real life unfolds in experiences. And experiences only happen when we expand our mental boundaries and commit to activities that push us beyond what feels familiar.