Are You Sinking Into An Ocean Of Quiet Desperation?

Did you ever wonder what Henry David Thoreau meant when he said “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them” or do you already know that feeling all too well? If you are not sure, test yourself with the example below to see if you already qualify!

Imagine you are busy with a dozen things, taking calls, making plans and trying to get on a bus to go to something that it is critical that you attend.

In between the phone and making notes and just the “things” of life you get on the bus to go to your main event.

After a while of driving along the road, you get the feeling that something is wrong.

What is it that is niggling at you? You are still writing things up and the phone keeps ringing, you are busy, but something is just not right.

You begin to pay attention to your surroundings and you cannot quite place where you are. Slowly, surprisingly slowly, you come to realize that you have got onto the wrong bus.

My gosh, what do you do?
You can stop the bus and get off but you have no idea where you are or how to get to the right place. From where you are now you don’t even know which direction the right place is.

Tension builds. Staying on the bus will get you to the wrong place. You will not get to where you want to be. On the other hand who knows where you will be if you get off now. At the very worst, staying on the bus will get you to a known destination and maybe you can arrange to get to the right place from there.

This is the feeling that afflicts many people with the direction of their lives.
They know that continuing what they are doing will not get them to the place they want to go to.

They know that their life is not what they planned and they are not in control of it.

The problem is that they do not know what they can do to make things different.

They live lives of quiet desperation.

So, what answers are there to this?

Wait till you get to the end of your career and then retire at last, your time would be free but nothing else is? Continuing down that road means you end up old and broke after selling your life and time at wholesale so that someone else can profit from selling your time at retail.

The other answer, jumping off the bus, works for some people. The trouble is that you can end up very sore, battered and bruised from jumping off a moving bus.

Most people stay on it to avoid the torn clothes and skin and the loss of blood from jumping off. Quietly desperate, but safe.

Someone I respect once asked his mother how long he had to do a demanding and repetitive summer job he was working at. She told him “Until you can find something better and step to it”.

This is where many people find their answer. Something better. How about finding an alternative way of making money, an alternative way of living and begin to do it alongside what you are doing now.

If you are able to set up a business that is inexpensive to start and that can be worked in a sensible number of hours per week, hours that YOU choose, working with products that you believe in, then it can be more a hobby or an interest at the start. It is not a job till you make it a job by the way you treat it. A hobby can take time and effort but if you have passion in it then it is not work at all.

Finding a business with the potential to grow into a full time position is not as easy as it sounds and building a business to the point where it will support you to change the direction of your life takes work and effort. But is the pain of creating a new direction in your life more than the pain of staying with the future you have now?

When you realize that you can have a direct effect on your destiny then I suggest you go back to the direct sales companies, the Multi Level Marketing (MLM) companies and the other places where you can put down a small investment of cash, a small investment of time, and begin to build a business.

The issue is not if you are going to start something that may fail. The issue is that if you do not start something is your current life going to guarantee that you never achieve the potential of what you could have achieved!

As Jim Rohn said: “For things to change, you need to change. For things to be different you need to do something different.”

The answers and the support are out there for you to succeed to achieve your dreams. Success leaves clues, just find some successful people to coach you on how they did it. Since other people have done it, why not you too?

Start taking positive steps to get in the drivers seat of your life, don’t leave it up to others to decide what you and your life is worth.n