“You may not be a millionaire in terms of money,” a friend said to me once, “but in terms of freedom and time, you’re a gazillionaire.”
True.
I have a shitload of freedom.
And if I had a dollar for every time someone said they wanted that much time and freedom, too, I could have retired 12 years ago.
What all these people also said was that in their situation, that much freedom wasn’t possible.Because they have kids and I don’t. Or whatever other, super valid reason why they couldn’t have as much free time as I do.
Yes, it’s true that most people aren’t in a position to live and work like I do.
But here’s the mindfuck underneath these, again, valid objections:
Freedom has nothing to do with how much time you have.
Or how much money.
You can take a 5-year sabbatical and still feel guilty about sleeping in until 6.30 am.
You can have more money than Mammon and still worry if you can afford a pair of new socks.
And …
You can work 25 hours per day and still feel free.
You can be flat broke and still not worry about a thing.
You can feel free and at peace right here, right now.
With your life and business looking exactly as they do now.
How?
You stop rehashing the email you sent yesterday and notice the tea in your hand. The itch on your scalp. The motorcycle revving its engine.
What’s left is here, now.
And instead of following your thoughts like your tour guide on a city trip in Paris, you drop underneath them. There are still thoughts, but you don’t pay them much attention. You listen to the silence they came from instead.
When you do that, you realize that freedom is already here. While you’re drinking tea, or making sure your kid gets to school on time, or driving through rush hour to an appointment with a new client.
Freedom isn’t something waiting for you in between meetings, for two hours next Sunday, or on your next vacation.
It’s here.
Yes, I have more free time than anyone I know.
No, that’s not the reason I am free.
There are plenty of things I could worry about.
And worries pass by every now and then.
But they are just thoughts.
Thoughts I can follow into a dark alley or can see without paying much attention to them, just like I see my olive tree from the corner of my eye right now without focusing on it.
You can be a freedom gazillionaire, too.
You don’t have to wait until you’re retired.
(If you can’t feel free now, you won’t feel free then. Just a heads up.)
This same freedom is available while you’re wondering if you’re productive enough. Or when that nagging sense that you should be further along by now pops up.
It only takes a shift in attention.
Away from the tour guide in Crete, 30 years ago, who told us, dead serious, that “the entire island of Crete is surrounded by water.” My friend and I nearly peed ourselves laughing. We were still giggling back at the apartment.
And towards the quiet underneath.
Go see for yourself.
Love,
P.S. In private coaching you make this shift away from thoughts to the quiet they came from until it sticks.
And you’re free even when you have 13 things to do and have time for only 3.
And you’re calm even when all hell breaks loose.
No extra workload. No self-improvement. Just a shift in attention.
Why wait?
P.P.S. Liked this blog?
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