Choice 25
Get a Life, with Spirit

Get a life” is a common expression, often spoken in a less than complimentary tone. The phrase is often used as an insult directed at someone who is seen to be focusing on trivial concerns.202

“Can you believe the new department stationery that the division manager ordered? I don’t think the letterhead is very attractive. Do you, Tom?”

“Given all the other problems we’ve got going on right now with recent sales decreases and the possibility of major layoffs in our division, how can you focus on something as trivial as stationery? Shoshana, you need to get a life!”

We can recognize the timeliness of this kind of challenge when we see others fixated on things that seem of little significance. In some ways, however, the various issues discussed in this book challenge all of us to “get a life!” Certainly, it is worth considering whether we have meaning and significance in our lives, but that is not the whole story. Perhaps it is not that we are spending our days wrestling with needless trivia that we shouldn’t be wasting our time (and our lives) on. Rather, it may be that we are mostly just going through the motions, even if our work and our roles in life do have real significance.203

It is too easy to become numbed to life and go from hour to hour and day to day in a kind of daze, with no sense of purpose, enthusiasm, or value placed on the gift of being alive. Who hasn’t had the experience of driving or walking on a familiar route and reaching our destination only to realize we were barely aware of our surroundings, even on a gorgeous day? Similarly, our lives can become bogged down with our immediate frustrating or difficult circumstances and the feelings that they foster. We can go through entire days focusing on annoying details and miss all the opportunities to be thankfully alive.

Ultimately, if we sincerely think about these kinds of ideas, we will find ourselves confronted by an even more revealing challenge. We are challenged to think deeply about the way we are spending the time that we have in this world. We come face to face with probing questions such as “Do I really have a life?” “Do I have a life, with spirit?” and “what does it really mean to have a life with spirit?” To answer these kinds of questions in a way that can have significance for how we will live from now on, we may need to transcend our normal plane of existence and to see things anew from a very different perspective.

One method that I have found that shakes me from my habitual views and daily routines is to try viewing the world poetically (I shared a similar idea in Chapter 23 for having an out-of-ego experience). When I try to view even the most common situations from the standpoint of creating poetry, the world seems to significantly change in an instant, becoming more spirited and alive somehow. As an example of breaking long-established petrified views of common things in the world, consider the following poem. It provides an artistic glimpse of how the limiting views that can hold us back, and that cause our lives to become lifeless, can be transformed before our very eyes.204

Soul Song

I looked down upon a star

and up upon the ground.

I looked clear through a cold brick wall

and at a sightless sound.

I ate a glass of full ripe wine

and drank a piece of pie.

A rope did shine upon the earth.

A moon beam I did tie.

I blew upon a scented rose

and sniffed some smooth white stones.

I slumbered to a loud shrill noise

and danced to silent tones.

I put some jewelry in my hair

and then my ears I curled.

I looked outside upon my heart

And deep inside the world.

I flew up through the clear blue sea

and washed with angels’ hair.

I breathed water from a crystal stream

and swam upon the air.

At last I felt myself awake,

I’d been spirit dead so long.

Living thoughts brought my soul alive

and it burst into song.

—Charles C. Manz

The challenge for each of us is to find ways to be more alive in our living. If we can choose to see, hear, smell, taste, and touch the world in new ways, we can awaken the spirit within us. And in doing so we can create a fuller and more spirited life.205

I wish you the very best as you continue on your own life journey. I sincerely hope that you will discover the powerful choices that you have about the way you feel and the significant impact they have on your life. I wish you an extraordinary life with spirit!