Chapter 2 Meaning Christmas Eve and I sit alone.
It's almost midnight.
My wife and three young children are all in bed.
The presents are wrapped,
The turkey and trimmings chilled and ready to go.
I pour another glass of red wine and settle down in front of the TV to watch a congregation sing carols by candlelight.
The words as ever seem to resonate with me and everyone sings badly like they only get to do it once a year.
Following the madness of the Christmas build-up,
This hour or so alone had become a sort of tradition for me each year.
An acknowledgement that the queuing,
The pushing and shoving,
The no parking,
The panic buying,
The card writing and the once a year family visits had all come to an end.
A realisation that for now there really is nothing more that can be done.
Christmas seems to be one of those times a year that lends itself to reflection,
To stopping for a moment to think about how our life is going.
What have we achieved?
How we are not getting any younger and are we getting it right?
Luckily for me I was and my career was far exceeding my expectations.
I was working in sales and personally responsible for managing a £30 million business whilst directing over 100 people.
My earning potential was uncapped and meant that myself and my family could enjoy a very comfortable lifestyle with all that comes with it and all before the big 4-0.
Only that afternoon my boss had called to say how delighted the shareholders and American owners were with our end of year performance.
They wanted to congratulate us again for year on year improvement in a difficult market.
So,
Bonus in the bag,
Praise in abundance and every career box ticked.
All I needed to do now was quietly join in singing Little Donkey and finish off the mince pie and glass of milk that had been left on top of the fireplace for you know who.
So why on earth would I suddenly get the feeling to give it up?
To simply walk away from everything that I had ever been certain I wanted to achieve in my life.
This wasn't about some 5 year plan.
Within 15 minutes I knew that for some reason I was never going to be the same person again.
Thoughts of uncertainty were replaced by a knowing that everything was perfect and a gentle quiet confidence grew out of limiting beliefs that I could only ever be the person I had created or others recognised as me.
I felt the need to write something down,
Maybe just to confirm what I had experienced.
This was completely out of character for me.
I found myself with pen and paper in hand staring at a blank page.
I was now sitting in complete silence and felt very much at ease and there seemed to be a calm,
Peaceful energy to the room.
After a few minutes the words Love's Whisper came to me.
I wrote them down in speech marks at the top of the page.
What then began to flow from the pen brought tears and just a few lines that seemed so obvious and yet elude so many offered me the chance to reconnect with something more meaningful in life and reassess what really mattered.
I have since read that the psychiatrist Carl Jung compares our lives to a typical day.
He talks about the morning and afternoon of our lives.
In the morning our values focus on career progression,
Material gain,
Status,
Wealth and obtaining more.
But he suggests that at some point there is a subtle but definite shift and we step thoroughly unprepared into the afternoon of our lives to begin a search for something more,
Something that gives meaning to why we are really here.
And there's no typical age for this to occur.
Everyone walks their perfect path at just the right time and as we arrive at this particular turning we just need to make a decision on which way to go.
I guess as I sat there that evening my life clock had just turned midday.
For most people this internal shift or calling does little more than create questions or uncertainty about how their lives have evolved.
Are they happy?
Is this it?
The intensity begins to disappear and is often dressed up as oh he had a midlife crisis or she just went off the rails for a while but she's okay again now.
But for some,
Indeed a growing number,
The seed has been planted and simply choosing to ignore this inner calling is not an option.
So what happens when so many of the things that seem important to you lose their significance or you realise that having more or the promotion or the best or the latest or the prettiest or the fastest doesn't hold the same value and certainly doesn't guarantee happiness?
What happens when you realise that there's so much more to life than the job title or the house that you live in or the car that you drive or the clothes that you wear or even what other people think of you,
Especially what other people think of you?
Well,
It leaves a void,
A space inside of us that may have been filled before with a certain train of thought or set of values.
But when you hear love's whisper or step into the afternoon of your life,
You just know it's time.
It's your time for fear to be replaced by love.
Even if at this point we are not sure what love really means.
Initially this can seem disorientating or confusing.
We would have been told by society and even those who love us and only want what's best for us that we needed to live and be a certain way,
That we needed to fit in,
That the morning of our life checklist is the way to go.
Get ahead,
Stay ahead,
Get more,
Earn more,
Have more.
Not just to keep up with the Joneses but to get the next model up and then you'll be okay.
You'll be happy.
So midlife crisis or new life beginning,
Have you fallen out of society or fallen into who you really are?
Are you trapped without answers or liberated to create your own?
How can we truly find meaning and develop a life that brings us joy and happiness whilst offering us a calm,
Peaceful outlook?
For me,
Began a journey of discovery and for the past 10 years or so,
I have read countless books that promised answers as well as books that left me with even more questions.
I've listened to spiritual masters as well as everyday people who have an angle or a view on how it should be.
I've sourced and watched thousands of hours of footage,
Retreated for periods in total silence,
Tried chanting for answers and come to know the absolute benefit of meditation and quietening the mind.
Out of all this,
A pattern began to emerge,
A thread that in some way has linked my decade of discovery to not only the main religious and philosophical theories and teachings but also to a straightforward daily approach that brings ancient wisdom to our crazy modern age.
And like so many things that work perfectly in life,
There is a real simplicity to what I now know will offer us true meaning,
A number of simple principles and if we get up each morning and work on them,
They will improve our lives beyond belief.
The following pages will begin to introduce them to you.
It is,
However,
Important for you to realise that if it all seems a bit too obvious or simple,
You haven't missed a trick.
You see,
We all know life's true meaning.
We were born with every answer we will ever need.
But shortly after,
The world took over and suffocated our true and natural ability to be happy and at peace.
It's now just a matter of stripping away the layers of things that we have been told mean everything so that we can once again reconnect with what will really bring us joy,
Peace and happiness.
