Take a deep breath.
Here is 1 creation, 1 quote, and 1 question to consider this week...
1 Creation From Me
“The Unspeakable Space” - a short story
(Click the play button at the top to watch)
Highlights:
This is the story of the ONE DAY that changed my life, shared live at a storytellers event in Potrero, Costa Rica
Quitting my corporate job and traveling the world did NOT lead to sustained happiness
I share the ONE THING I discovered that changed EVERYTHING
How trying the opposite has led to a joyful life
How nothing “out there” can satisfy the nudge—or shake—from the universe…it has to be an inner journey
Scroll all the way down for the full transcript.
1 Quote from another:
French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal on why we experience and create suffering:
“All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
From Pensées — a posthumous collection of philosophical reflections
1 Question to ponder:
With all the noise out there and in your mind…
When was the last time you left that behind?
If this resonated, pass it along to someone who might need it today. Let’s grow this circle!
Until next time, freethinkers…stay present, be pleasant, and have an amazing day!
Mike Messeroff
Founder of The Carpe Diem Company + Personal Freedom Coach
Creator of Self-Hospitality
Author of Dogs Get It: Advice I learned from my best friend
Full transcript of the story:
For me, I have one—one day—that I just define as the most important day of my life. A day that I discovered something that changed my entire life forever.
It was a day that actually helped me appreciate the fact that I was even born. It was a day that helped me discover why I was alive—my purpose in life. It was a day that really just brought me everything I thought I was looking for everywhere else in the world. It brought me to the thing that I was actually looking for—inside of me.
And that day was May 5th, 2017.
A day that really changed my life. Five-five.
But to kind of tell the whole story, I have to go back a few years.
When I was in my 20s, I was kind of like what you might say is living a really good, successful life. I was living in Manhattan, had a great job working for an amazing airline—great perks, great benefits. I had it. I was married to my beautiful wife—amazing, she's an amazing woman.
And throughout my 20s, I knew that there was something missing. There was something a little off, and I didn’t know what it was.
So I did what most people do—I kind of ignored it, shoved it down, and distracted myself with work and partying on the weekends and normal things that 20-year-olds do, 20-something.
And that kind of was the trend until the end of my 20s.
Luckily, my wife was in the same boat, and we decided to try the opposite. So we quit our jobs, sold all of our stuff, and moved to the Virgin Islands.
And that started a whole new chapter in our life. And it was amazing.
You know, I learned how to bartend. Spent the next several years traveling the world, bartending in the Caribbean—traveled to Indonesia, Fiji, Hawaii. I worked and traveled all over Australia and New Zealand. Came back to New York, and then our travels brought us to the beautiful Rocky Mountains—Breckenridge, Colorado.
And this was now supposed to be a ski season.
Three years later, Breckenridge is our home, and I'm working at this amazing restaurant, and I'm skiing—no joke—100 days a season, pretty much every day of the ski season.
And this was the winter of 2016 into 2017.
And you know, when I was working corporate, I had that gentle nudge—like there’s more to life.
And I knew it, because the best part of my day was always my walk at lunch. And that was telling me something.
But when I was in Breckenridge, three years in, it wasn’t a nudge. It was a full shake from the universe—in the form of panic attacks, full-blown anxiety, major depression.
And it shook me—because I had already done what I thought everyone would have wanted to do: quit the corporate grind, travel the world, have a lot of fun.
And it still wasn’t the thing.
I felt empty. Felt like there was still something more.
But I had already looked for it everywhere—and I didn’t find it.
Luckily, I had a therapist who was into mindfulness and planted the seed of meditation in my mind.
And I kind of laughed at it. I said, “Do nothing? Sit in a room and do nothing?” That seemed crazy to me.
But I figured—I’d tried everything before. So I might as well try the opposite. Try nothing.
So that brings me to May 5th, 2017—the day I started meditating.
And it completely... changed my life. Almost immediately. Definitely in that first week.
I was able to almost get a different view on my thoughts. I was able to see them from a different perspective and realize that I am not my thoughts. I don’t have to try to think every thought to the end, to completion.
It’s impossible—and it’s a recipe for misery.
And that... that experience gave me so much in my life.
It gave me presence. It gave me peace. It gave me the joy I was looking for.
But what it gave me—on topic for tonight—is the space that I call the unspeakable space.
And it’s hard to talk about—because it’s unspeakable. It’s unwritable. It’s unspeakable.
It’s something that can’t be said. It can only be felt. It can only be experienced.
That magic gap of no thought.
The space in between our thoughts.
And when I got a taste of that—I knew. I just knew. I was like, shit… this is it.
Like, this is the thing. It’s not out there. It’s not in the next vacation. It’s not in the next trip, or mountain, or beach, or adventure.
It was something that was always inside of me.
This magical gap—this space that’s unspeakable, that you can’t even talk about. You have to experience it in your life.
And that sent me on a journey of doing what I do today—which is, my whole life is based around sharing this message:
That sitting and doing nothing will bring you everything in your life.
It brought me so much peace, and joy, and happiness, and fulfillment.
And it brought me something that I can’t even talk about.
All I can say is—if it did all of that for me in my life…
And it taught me that nothing out there could ever satisfy that nudge or that shake from the universe…
If it could bring me that much peace and joy—
Imagine what a little bit of time in that space,
That unspeakable space between our thoughts,
Will do for your life.
Thank you so much, guys.
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