“It has to be something you can’t not do.” — Jerry Seinfeld.
“In Tonio Kröger, the young artist moved out of the world of what had to be done. In the Magic Mountain, Hans Castorp stepped away from the world of what had to be done and followed the fascination of his nature. That is the adventure. “
– Joseph Campbell, Collected Works, II.1.7, “Thomas Mann and James Joyce”, ‘Absorbing the Monstrous’, 5:23 mark in the audio lecture.
The key here is to discern what is the fascination of your nature. When you have found that, the “World of What Has to Be Done” simply has to take a back seat. It’s a psychological shift. Doesn’t mean you don’t pay your bills. Doesn’t mean you don’t run your errands or attend social functions, but it does mean those things are no longer your priority. You’re priority is your fascination. You follow that as long and as hard as your inner nature tells you to. And then when the inevitable need to take a break comes, you do your secondary items.
Stephen Cope has a nice phrase: “What lights you up?” I think Bob Proctor says something like “What winds your stem, what gets you jazzed?” And then really it becomes a psychological problem rather than a practical one because when you change your psychology, your consciousness, into one of making your fascination the centerpiece, the most important thing in your life, you initiate your subconscious, the doorway to eternity, and this infinite resource goes to work for you 100% of the time, even when you are running errands, paying bills, or attending social functions. And then everything starts to happen. You’re riding a wave. Your wave.
Update July 5th, 2019:
“I have to admit something about this is calling me.”
I was watching a video about a certain experience in a certain place that someone was having, and I found myself spontaneously saying that out loud. Begin to notice the things that turn you on, that get you jazzed, that wind your stem. Put them in a diary and notice if there’s a commonality there. There is no right answer. It’s whatever your heart is pulling you toward. The secret, and the treasure, and the adventure is tied up in that.
, the first book by Gary, which explains his how he turned his New Jersey wine store into a 70 million dollar business using Social Media, and how everyone can turn their passion into, if not a career, at least a living. This is because of the huge paradigm shift that’s happening right now in the communications revolution. Billions of dollars of advertising money is rapidly exiting “old media” and flowing into the new media world of the web. Advertising is becoming social and niche, and the advertisers are more and more diverting their budgets from the dying old media model of unengagement, the new media model of social, internet, and engaged, with the overriding theme of “real.” They are doing this because it is where the future is headed, or maybe I should say where the present is right now. They are getting more bang from their buck from interested, highly engaged, and authentic audiences, who themselves are becoming not just the consumers, but also the creators of the content that is informing the world.