Are You Living or Surviving?

As I celebrate another year on this beautiful earth, I take time to relfect on how I am living. I had a co-worker whose slogan with his email signature read, “Life is a gift, living is a choice.” How do you view life? I view this earthly life as a unique privilege and I cherish it. Now, having this perspective came with maturity, but I am so thankful for the opportunity to be here and I know my purpose and where I can contribute the most while I walk this earth so I set personal goals every year around the best ways I can give back. Upon my birthday every year, I do a lot of reflecting to see if I have accomplished what I desired from my previos years goals, then I decide what goals I am sticking with versus which ones require being revised. Let’s discuss life versus living. You are alive, but are you living? To anwer this question, we must define survival versus living. Survivial is where your basic physical human needs, such as air, water, food and shelter are being met. This is where you work to pay your bills, you eat and drink to feed your body, if you have kids you make sure they are ok, then you go to bed to wake up to repeat this viscious cycle. There is another saying and I am paraphrasing, don’t get so busy making a living that we forget to make a life. Yes, we have to have monetary means to purchase, food, clean water, shelter, etc, however, if this is all that you are doing, then you are NOT living. So, how can we get busy living?

I am a very spiritual person and my spiritual life is priorty number one in my life. I know that my main purpose in life is to ensure that myself, my family, and all those I come in contact with know God and His gospel so that this earthly life is not the end of our relationships, but just the beginning as we all look forward to eternity. I also know that physical human needs require being met so I get that you have to make a living and earn money, but I spent the last several years focusing on how to make income that allows me tremendous flexibility so that I can balance being a wife, mother, daughter, grandaughter, and friend while working from home. I also have spent time learning how to earn residual income (you do the work once and the money continues to come in) so that I can turn that into passive income (where you invest your money and it makes more money). Unfortunately, I was not taught any of this in school or college. I was taught to go to college, get a job and make a living…not get busy living. See the masses which is about 97% of the population are still captured by the educational training and programming of the Industrial Revolution Era. This is still how our schools are set up, but fortunately there is away to break away from the mundane and learn the necessary skills which will allow you to earn residual, then passive income, and not just a paycheck…if you are willing. This is what I do every single day. I get to teach and train people to do what I do so that they too can get busy living. I share the gospel and God with everyone, I teach people how to live in a healthy temple while serving God and walking this earth, I teach them systems that allow them to earn residual income, then lastly I teach them how to invest their earnings so that it makes more money. So why is this important to me? The more money you have the more choices you have, the more you can contribute, the more you can solve problems, and all of these is how I define freedom.

Life is short, time marches on with or without us as my grandfather used to say. And I would rather spend time learning what I require so that I can enjoy this life and be fulfilled knowing I made the most positive impact that I could while I was here, than to just survive and live with regrets. So many of us get caught up in being content with just making a living. I can tell you that I challenge myself to raise my standards every year. Life is a privilege and we are here to contribute and we all have a purpose so I chose not to squander this beautiful opportunity. If you have found yourself caught up in the throws of life and you are just surviving and not living, I challenge you to assess your life, your goals, and begin creating new goals around your purpose, then make it your mission to learn the necessary skills so you can meet thse goals, find a mentor and someone who has been successful at whatever goals you are seeking to accomplish, then model that successful person. We were told by the inspired word to go teach and preach the gospel to every nation…I see this as my way of seeing this beautiul earth he has given us? Are you traveling or is income a factor that prevents this and so you look at your mission being complete by your tithing. I challnege you to think bigger and sacrifice in the short term to learn skills that will allow you to earn monies that will allow you to get busy living. To reiterate, life is a gift, but living is a choice.