The Sleeper Must Awaken

(An excerpt from my upcoming book “How To Spend 24hrs A Day” that I hope to print before the end of year.)

In the classic story of Herman Miller’s “Dune” the duke’s son must make a trip to a hostile desolate planet and he is apprehensive about it. After speaking with his father about the trip he is told “A person needs new experiences. They jar something deep inside, allowing him to grow. Without change something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.” 

When we examine our desires to make a change in our lives what are the driving forces? If someone desires to climb Mount Everest they will manifest that reality till it is completed. They may however never make it to the top; they may only get as far as the foothills. Still however frustrated they get about never reaching the top of the mountain, they will not be as tormented as the person who never leaves their hometown to try.

How do we jar what is sleeping in our lives to become forefront and possible? How do we decide to make the change and awaken the sleeper? We are told we can do anything we want if we put our minds to it, so why don’t we?

It’s simple really.

Most of us want to reach our goals but never take any of the steps to try to accomplish them. Our excuse to ourselves is that there are only twenty-four hours in the day. We don’t have time to make such a huge commitment to ourselves. We have obligations and must attend to a busy work schedule and change diapers.

What goal is asleep inside you waiting to get out? Starting a new business? Maybe you have the next great Kickstarter idea? Maybe you just want to travel to somewhere you have never been.

When will you find the time in your current busy schedule to start working towards your goals? You have twenty-four hours of daily time. Within that timeframe we must try to find heath, rest, discovery, enjoyment, love, relationship and the meaning of life. What do all these things depend on? Your happiness - if there is no happiness it what you are doing you will never do it fully.

First we have to start to rearrange our current lives and schedules and start thinking about how to achieve our goals. We can start small. Give yourself 30 minutes a day and come up with 5 goals you want to accomplish. After you have your goals start thinking of the next steps to accomplish them and write them out. It is not enough to just come up with the idea. You need to figure out the next steps.

There are a million books that will tell you how to make more money, but how many tell you how to make more time? Money is far easier to come by. If we were to really look at all the things we do in our “Daily 24” how many of us could say “I have truly lived today”.

(more to come.)