We’ve all got two lives. 

Not I, Confucius says that. 

We’ve all got two lives and the second one begins when we realize we’ve only got one. Just one left to go. So how to live your best life yet?

And ever since I read this one sentence in a book, I’ve been marveling over the simple piece of wisdom and irony that this is.

And so true too.

 

How to Live Your Best Life

Yoive got two attempts. What are you going to make of them?

Your First Attempt to Live Your Best Life

As we’ve already proven, we’ve all got two lives. Metaphorical, not literal.

Suppose, you’re living your first life right now, especially if you’re young and crazily driven by this innate desire to do or achieve something. You’re excited about the life that you have laid out in front of you. You’re excited about the untrodden pathways and unseen sunrises.

It looks thrilling.

You have a purpose you’ve got to achieve. You are running after it—chasing dreams. You’re studying, or practising, or simply just working hard in whatever you’re doing. You’re running ahead of the world, or maybe it’s the world that’s running late, you tell yourself with pride.

Then you grow up.

Bummer.

After seeing all that you’ve gotten at such a young age, you act a little like all humans do and guess what—you’ve got ego problems. A huge ego. You think you’re just better than everyone else. When your family tries to hold you back, you ask them to let you go. 

You’ve got things to achieve, for God’s sake! 

You can’t be held back. You get in arguments, even fights, you have a bad temper, you think your destination lies at the top of that mountain. And you can’t climb in a herd. 

As a result, you seclude yourself. 

Instead of choosing good relationships as a priority, you choose money and fame. 

And it’s not bad. 

In fact, I think I would’ve leaned towards the same thing first—making a name for myself and creating something epic. 

You achieve it, what you desired. You achieve whatever you ever wanted to achieve. 

You’ve got it all. Everything. Life is finally good. It at last seems like the grass is greener on your own side because you’ve watered it every single day since long enough that no one else will compare to it.

You’ve spent all the time running after it all. Conquering it. Reaching all the milestones. Building a dynasty. 

But even though the people on the outside talk about you and admire your greatness, you don’t get that feeling of satisfaction anymore. You don’t get happiness out of it anymore. 

A bungalow you’ve always dreamed of? You live in that, as a matter of fact. But it’s just the same, plain old building of brick. It had seemed exciting earlier, but now the spotless walls and rooms, immaculately dressed servants, all seem a little bland. 

In the end, no matter how attractive they look, all the material things are still material, and all the intellectual things are intellectual. 

In the end, family is home and a bungalow is just a house. Is this even your best life?

You realize this. 

Well done. Better late than never. 

Realization Phase

What you had just created all your life, was just a series of achievements that seemed so attractive back in those days. People say that those who are successful are never happy. The poor dad was happy with whatever he had and the rich dad was the one who taught him how to gain more. This might not always be the case, as all of us are pretty different, but this is often the case where people chase the sense of achievements and forget all about success.

Those who chase the feeling of material achievements later realize that they never created the family they wanted to live with in that bungalow, travel with in that jet, and live that exquisite life with. 

And then, imagine, you suddenly come to terms with the fact that you’re getting old too. 

And now, it’s not just about being lonely and bored, its also about being tired. You want to get off the hedonic treadmill. It’s taking up all your mental energy and pushing you to the limits of a burnout syndrome. 

This needs to stop. 

Here your second life begins, because you realize you’re left with just one. 

Your Second (and last) Attempt To Live Your Best Life

When your second life begins, it’s nothing like the first. In fact, it’s completely different and you start to gain this profound wisdom in life.

You’re horrified by all those years of life you took for granted. You never paid any attention to all those things those other people were doing. While they were enjoying life and being happy and not worrying so much about the future, just letting it all happen, you were always scheduling your next meeting, planning ahead the next day. 

Canceling holidays and vacations if an important work came up, always staying awake till late, working on your laptop. You thought you were preparing yourself for the actual wars when others just won or lost battles. 

But in real life, does anyone really care if you win the war or not? 

Who are we kidding, many people don’t even show up for the wars, resorting to just find happiness in little things of everyday life. 

So now that you’ve realize how singular life is—how it is never going to happen again, and one day none of this would matter—you change. 

Your new life begins, you take birth once again. This would be marking the occurrence of your rebirth.

All that work doesn’t matter anymore. If a client calls, you don’t get up from the dining table to answer. You stop thinking about getting the next deal. You find out what you truly love doing and you start doing more of it. You take time out of work to find true love. 

You create a life. The real one. 

You change and you start doing the things you didn’t really focus on before. You focus on your mental and physical health, your happiness, your soul, your dreams, your family and your friends. You become really selfish and that’s the best thing about this life. You think for yourself.

You smile and laugh. If you couldn’t do something today, instead of beating yourself up, you do it tomorrow. You allow yourself to make mistakes. You give yourself room to grow. 

Maybe one day you’re running late for work but you make the exception of still getting the coffee and enjoying it in the café with a good book. You make friends with the waiter. You talk kindly to everyone. 

You don’t compromise with your sleep or your diet. 

In this new life, you’ve turned off the hedonic treadmill and you let life go its own natural pace. 

And, yeah, your societal success level may come down a bit as you may stop putting in all your effort. But that’s probably because putting in all your effort was messing with your head. 

And besides, who wants to crate a legacy and then become a legend? We all want to create a legacy and then live to see it. 

Summary

We’ve all got two lives.

In the end, it doesn’t matter who was more successful and famous. It doesn’t matter how far you came, how much your tried, how better was the quality of your life. It doesn’t matter what you made out of your first life, if you lived it like you wanted to, or like others expected you to.

What matters in the end, is when and where our second lives began. Did they begin with realization, or just accidentally?

It may seem phenomenal when our second lives begin.

So ask yourself, has yours begun yet? 

Conclusion

Life is full of philosophy and all we have to do is discover it. Read more amazing posts like this and find out the truth and motivation behind life and ourselves.

Here’s my recommended reading: Growing Up and Flowing Down