Ignoring the fuel gauge – How your life will improve when you stop counting the days.

Confucius said “We have two lives and the second one starts when we realise we only have one”.

There comes a turning point in your outlook I think, when you have this realisation that the days in front of you are less than the days behind. Then I found there is another turning point sometime after that when you realise it’s not a good idea to count the days like that. I spent some time with my Dad recently who is in his late 70s and in rude health. I realised he was thoroughly enjoying his life and that enjoyment wasn’t coming from staring at the fuel of gauge of life and thinking I’ve got less than a quarter of a tank left, best make the most of it.

He’d made a new fuel gauge, one that is calibrated over the remaining quarter. Either that or he’d dismissed any notion of there being a gauge at all, which is even better.

So I think this notion of living your best days because there aren’t many left isn’t helpful. It’s better just to live, and I mean live in the active sense not a passive, ‘I’m just existing’, one. I can refine that further by saying I’m much more intolerant now of wasting time. If I spend my energy on something it’s got to pass a few tests.

1- Does it fulfil me?

2- Does it help fulfil someone else?

3- Does it sustain my resources to do 1 or 2?

I’ve also realised that success and achievement are highly overrated. Really bad things happen to successful people that only live for achievement. When they get to whatever goal they’ve set themselves, their lives suddenly become very empty, and dangerous things start to fill the void.. That’s what The Man Left In Space was all about.

Better to be fulfilled on the journey…which is why I’ve started writing music again.