Winning at life has nothing to do with having the nicest clothes, most beautiful wife, best physique etc. These things are cool, if you have perspective—but most don’t. Many people are meandering through life trying to attain certain things that they have been led to believe will bring them happiness—but they won’t. In order for a human being to truly achieve happiness, they must learn to listen, as the only species that can.
Human consciousness is the most interesting and least understood object on the planet. It most distinguishes us from the rest of the animal kingdom; allowing for a social hierarchy that is concerned with more than just strength and reproductive capacity alone. Yet, if neglected, your consciousness will destroy you.
How your consciousness dictates your character results from an ability to interpret what it tells you, and adjust accordingly. When it comes to this crucial skill, humans usually fall into one of three categories: The Caveman, The Vain-Man, and The Main-Man.
The Caveman is the quintessential egotist. He listens, but only to the demands of his ego instructing him to mate with as many women as he can—and then brag about it. This individual’s ego is so intrusive, his priorities can only be compared to those of predatory animals and our most primitive kin. Being ego-driven was useful 10,000 years ago when our egos directed us to run from sabertooth tigers instead of turning to pet them, but now they’re just unbecoming.
The Vain-Man is a slightly more evolved version of his Caveman brethren. He may or may not still value vanity in the form of physical features and sexual prowess, but his slight increase in awareness comes at the cost of making his desires even more superficial. In 10,000 years, we have gone from being potential prey, to the species that controls the fate of the universe; yet, the conscious awareness that has facilitated this ascension is also to blame for the convoluted understanding of what it really means to “be at the top.” We have outsmarted ourselves to the point where even the people who seem to have the lives we covet, can’t stand to live another day (see Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade as most recent examples). The Vain-Man is listening, but his ego is telling him that he’s not good enough. It’s telling him that when he gets the next best thing that everyone is after, he will be satisfied. Yet when he acquires these things, he’s still incomplete. Attaining money and status only blur his understanding of happiness because these things are fallible; their value is based on society’s collective subjectivity. Choosing to pursue objects that have no intrinsic value, rather than striving for things you have independently identified as important, is simply the wrong way to live. Living your life chasing what you are told you should want is a good way to end up looking in the mirror at age fifty with no idea who is staring back at you. Then what?
Fortunately, it’s never too late to become TheMain-Man. TheMain-Man earns his title because he is the best listener—plain and simple. He’s been paying attention these past 10,000 years and taking notes. He appreciates that his mere existence is a miracle, not to be taken for granted. He is aware and in awe of the inexplicable chain of events that have led to his creation. He finds gratitude knowing that 10,000 years ago, his ancestors threw rocks at each other for fun, and died from flesh wounds; fun could turn into death real quick. He is thankful everyday to exist in a society with iPhones to distract us from anything we want distraction from, and “WebMD” for answers to things as mundane as “What should I do when I stub my toe?” His perspective helps him appreciate the minutiae of everything that has led to him having more opportunities than at any time in the past, which causes him to ask the quintessential question: Who is making this happen?
My spirituality should not be mistaken for religious fervor, but a failure to believe in something is tantamount to an acceptance of going through life alone. The inabilities of the Caveman and Vain-Man to embrace the supernatural quality of human life, and the infinitesimal odds of their existence, causes them to search in the wrong places for an answer to a question we have all asked: What is happiness? Yet if they had the ability to listen, they would hear a voice telling them, “Pursue your dreams and don’t worry, I got your back.”
A Main-Man trusts this voice and lives a fulfilled life because he knows that someone infinitely wiser and more powerful has a plan. He sees that we are all interconnected, and that someone has lent us a small amount of time on this planet with the hopes that we will use it to keep his plan in motion. This someone has taken us from a time when we were hunted, to an era when we can have McDonald’s delivered to our door in fifteen minutes—he isn’t going to let Instagram be the downfall of our society.
Yet we will only be saved when we start listening again, and start understanding what we hear. The Main-Man succeeds because of his positive view on mortality. He can live his life pursuing his passions because he is not afraid of death. He has accepted that he is living on borrowed time; when that someone decides his time is up—there is nothing he can do about it. That someone does indeed have a plan; one he envisions continuing for eternity. For his part, whenever the Main-Man successfully deciphers one of someone’s messages, he is rewarded with a visceral feeling of ease; something that lets him know he is right where he needs to be.
These messages are not dissimilar to the omnipresent dissatisfaction you experience at the thought of continuing to do whatever mundane shit you have been doing for the past five to twenty years; all in an effort to attain a life that society has guided you to want. Whether caused by an inability to listen or an unwillingness, most will continue doing that mundane shit until they wake up one day to a feeling of true misery. Consciousness is a fickle bitch.
For the record, this does not mean that money is not important, but it is certainly less important than happiness—and the two are not mutually exclusive. As it is, true happiness comes when we stop doing it for the money, and start doing it for the love—I know this because someone told me.
When I graduated college, working sales in Manhattan, I was a Vain-Caveman: chasing women and money, chasing women with money, and talking about my escapades with anyone who would listen. Somehow, one day, something changed. That little voice that had been speaking to me for so long finally got through:
You cannot continue doing what you’re doing without going insane.
So I quit—just like that. I had no real plan, but I had support. At age 24, I moved back in with my parents to regroup. I tested the waters by acting and modeling but neither were my calling, so I started personal training. In the three-and-a-half years since beginning my study of kinesiology, I have made a personal transformation beyond my wildest dreams. I went from not being able to sit Indian-style, to doing full splits. I attribute this feat to my mid-life discovery of how to listen. Every time doubt crept into my mind about whether I was properly allocating my time by being at the gym instead of in an office, I took a breath and tried to hear. Time and time again, what I’ve heard is a voice that I have come to recognize as my heart, saying either, “Keep doing what you’re doing,” or “Time to pivot, idiot.” Given the heart is our link to life, and our lives are all connected, I have come to see the heart as the preferred vessel of communication for someone to relay his messages. Since developing my listening skills, his message to me has become quite clear: Fix your body, then fix everyone else’s.
Understanding this has instilled in me a profound level of gratitude for both my heart and that someone. Listening has helped me uncover something I truly love—fixing broken bodies by fixing broken minds. This only happened when I stopped comparing myself to everyone else, and started measuring my success against who I was the day before. As a result—I stumbled upon happiness.
By choosing impeccable health as my object of conscious importance—a standard irrespective of other people—I created the proper vehicle for personal growth. If I feel that any sort of physical or psychological improvement has been made in a given day, I award myself a plus-one in the mental-box labeled, “Daily Satisfaction.” There are certainly days when I take a step back, sometimes two, but for the three-and-a-half years since uncovering my life’s mission, I have received a heck of a lot more plus ones than not.
As a result, I have developed an understanding of the mind/body connection that I cannot describe. And while it does me no good to tell you how strong I feel both physically and mentally, I can teach you to cultivate this ability in yourself if you long for the struggle and have a desire to listen. I can do this because someone has been instructing me on how to develop these skills, and making it clear that it is my duty to pass this gift along.
