I believe every one of us is searching for significance and satisfaction in life. My work as a financial advisor has put me in contact with a lot of different people at differing levels of wealth and poverty, and I’ve become convinced of a simple truth:
Success, satisfaction and significance aren’t born out of your account balance or income, but are achieved by the way you engage life in the present.
Each moment is packed with potential for eternal significance.
We are constantly making significant decisions. They don’t always look like life-changing opportunities, but they are always in front of us. They’re choices that build on one another—like the times you’re in a rush to get something done and you decide to break from your frenzied routine and tell your spouse how much the matter to you. We make little choices everyday that we don’t think about. We choose to watch show after show on Netflix instead of reaching out to a friend. We walk by friends and acquaintances asking them if they are well, decidedly content not to engage in their response. (What if we did?)
We make choices all the time. Some of them are smaller while some are larger. some of them are financial, some of them spiritual, and other are relational. As a financial advisor, I generally see people when they are thinking about financial decisions. In reality, there are a few different types of capital we need to think about spending, investing, and growing.
One Thing… Another… or Neither?
Here’s the thing about these small decisions that create this kind of eternal significance. Every moment in which we act, we take a step forward on one path or another. Even indecision, or inaction is a step forward in the timeline of our lives. We create futures with these steps, building them into a masterpiece, or we leave them weathered, worn and underdeveloped. We pursue our passions, or we let them fade.
The hard truth in this is that we make choices that don’t lead us to this kind of significance and success all the time. When our priorities are misaligned, we find ourselves on facebook instead of face-to-face with the people who are right there. At other times, we do things that insulate us, from communities and our own fears. We choose to be disengaged or to build up walls to protect us from our fears or even from self-understanding. Decisions like these are often ones of apathy because it can seem easier to continue on the path of a disengaged life.
Engage Life!
The fantastic news is that each of these moments is new. You can live in a way that makes each moment significant, STARTING NOW. Every day, we encounter opportunities to engage life in such a way that we will make an eternal impact, creating a future for ourselves, our families, and our communities.
I encourage you to start engaging life on purpose. Though there is no set path to follow, I’ll be writing about a few simple ways get started in my next post “Engage Life – living on purpose.”
