People tend to live life by deferring enjoyment, or structuring life so that they can enjoy every day. Entrepreneurs owe it to themselves to enjoy every day.
The Deferred Life plan
The dominant story about success is that someone works hard and then earns the right to enjoy what is left of their life. This is the Deferred Life Plan – you only start living when you have “made it.”
The reality is that many people drop dead because they drive too hard and cause so much hurt to themselves to those around them that they never get to the enjoyment part, or they get there and find it isn’t what they expected. In which case they keep bashing their head against the wall and go to Try Harderagain.
The Whole Life plan
People who build businesses just to chase the money are rarely, if ever, happy. People who build businesses for some greater purpose often find that reward comes their way. They have passion.
The alternative is to stop looking for a destination and instead to make sure you enjoy the journey. This is the Whole Life Plan. It takes guts to start making it up as you go along and to move away from the “Success script” that we’ve all heard so many times.
For more, read:
- Randy Komisar’s The Monk and the Riddle
- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow
- Eckart Tolle’s A New Earth and The Power of Now