PRICE ARE GOING UP

My walks in the woods behind my house have become a bit shorter of late.??The kids have gotten busier.??I have gotten busier.??Life and business have gotten busier.??Thankfully the early mornings are getting a bit lighter out here in the Pacific Northwest which allows me to go out for my run and subsequent forest hike a bit earlier in the day.??This morning I set out at about 5:30 or so.??

Many-a-hike I am reminded of one of my favorite books - Walden by Thoreau. I am exactly the same age as Thoreau when he died. He wrote Walden at the young age of 27 during a two year-stay in a cabin that he built by hand in the woods by a 62-acre lake in Concord, Massachusetts. It’s hard to believe he was so young and yet so insightful. It’s hard to believe he wrote that book about 178 years ago, and yet the important things in life have not changed much.

In Walden, he wrote:

“I went into the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover what I had not lived.”

Years ago this statement struck me as a perfect description of what a well designed life looks like. It caused me to create the phrase “living life backwards instead of forwards.”??I intended that as an expression to constantly remind myself to make decisions and to live today as I would if I were at the end of my life.??Too often we get caught up in the “someday” thinking and decision making strategy.??Someday, I will do that.??Someday, I will have the time.??Someday I will go there.??Someday, I will… We wind up living our life forward and putting all the things we aspire to do towards the tail end of our life - convinced for some reason that the end will alway be there, exactly as we planned.?

It’s perspective shifting to so simply recognize the importance of bringing to the present that which often gets left to the future.

It doesn’t mean we should all build little 10x15 cabins in the woods by our favorite lake and write books - although that does sound a bit amazing. It should though, cause us to ask ourselves more meaningful and powerful questions though.

Later in Walden, Thoreau wrote,?

“…the cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.”?

As you make your choices, be ok with asking yourself if you are willingly, knowingly, and purposefully exchanging a unit of time, or a unit of life, for that thing. That thing could be a goal. That thing could be a relationship. That thing could be an event. Is it worth it? Does it line up with the life you pre-designed for yourself? Does it contribute to one of the core pillars of your life - career, relationships, personal development, wealth, health, or spirituality???

What price are you paying for success?

What price are you paying for influence?

What price are you paying for recognition?

What price are you paying for your goal?

We are constantly paying for every decision. The fees go up and down. We may not take out dollar bills or swipe credit cards at each decision point, but we absolutely are trading our most valuable commodity with each decision - time.?

Each day we get older, each week we live, each month that passes, and each year we turn the page on, the prices go up. Our time gets just a little bit more valuable. I suppose?that makes time not only our most valuable asset, but also our most appreciating asset.??

So this week, slow down. Extend that walk in the woods by a few minutes. Be purposeful. Make good decisions, excellent trades, and wise purchases. Prices are going up.?

Chris