Shownotes
Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy
Welcome to Day 583 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.
This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom
What Is Lifestyle?
Thank you for joining us for our 5 days per week wisdom and legacy building podcast. This is Day 583 of our trek, and today is Philosophy Friday. Every Friday we ponder some of the basic truths and mysteries of life and how they can impact us in creating our living legacy.
Currently, we are on an extended multi-week trek as we explore the teachings from some of my virtual mentors, such as Jim Rohn, Zig Ziglar, and Earl Nightingale. The core of our current trek is based primarily on Jim Rohn’s book The Five Major Pieces to the Life Puzzle. I have learned a considerable amount from reading and re-reading this book on my own trek of life, and I trust that it will benefit you also. Keeping with the continuity of Wisdom-Trek, I have adapted it to The Five Trails on Life’s Trek.
We are broadcasting from our studio at The Big House in Marietta, Ohio. This has been a pleasant spring week with the mature maples and oaks finally budding and their leaves starting to show. It won’t be long before we are in full foliage once again. I am making progress on cutting up the trees that we had cut down. They were large and cutting them up into manageable sections is proving to be very physically challenging. The stack along the side of the garage is growing rapidly. I suspect it will be several more weeks before the cleanup project is complete. We hope to invest in a log splitter this fall since many of the pieces are too large to carry or fit into the fireplace.
While I enjoy being outside and doing physical labor, it certainly creates sore muscles that I don’t use as rigorously during my daily exercise routine. Although life is far from perfect, and we struggle like everyone, we are focusing on enjoying our daily lifestyle and being content with how life is and not how we wish it to be. We certainly strive to improve our lifestyle but choose to be content as we work on those improvements.
As we continue on our extended trek today, we will begin our 5th trail, which is The Trail of Lifestyle. The final blending of our philosophy, attitude, activity, and results is what creates this final personal quest that we call lifestyle. If you have missed the past few Philosophy Friday treks, it would be good to go back and review them to get caught up on our progress so far.
We have a lot of ground to cover today, so let’s break camp and begin the fifth trail of this extended trek as we cover…
The Five Trails on Life’s Trek – Lifestyle Part (1)
As a reminder, our overall extended trek covers these five trails:
- Philosophy
- Attitude
- Activity
- Results
- Lifestyle
1. What Is Lifestyle?
Lifestyle is how we choose to live and how we design our lives. It is the sophisticated understanding of the difference between life’s trinkets and life’s treasures.
Many have learned to earn well, but they have not yet learned to live well. It’s as though they have decided to wait until they become wealthy before they start practicing sophistication. What they fail to understand is that practiced sophistication is as much a cause of wealth as it is a result of wealth.
Some attribute their poor attitude about life to their low level of income. They maintain that if they ever solved their money problems, they would show us what happiness is really all about. Obviously, they have not yet discovered that it was their failure to find happiness in the past that has affected their current income. If they continue with this error in judgment, their lack of happiness in the present will determine their future income as well. Until they have discovered that happiness is part of the cause and that wealth is merely an effect, their circumstances are not likely to change.
2. Lifestyle Is a Reflection of Our Attitude and Our Values
As we have already examined, how you feel and what you deem to be worthwhile is part of the mental process that ultimately determines what you attract into your life. If you are not happy with your current circumstances, you can begin to change them simply by changing how you think and feel.
Lifestyle is also a function of this same thinking process. Any day you choose, you have the ability to alter your lifestyle by changing how you feel and making better decisions about what you deem to be valuable.
The exciting thing about lifestyle is that you can have it all now! You don’t have to wait until you are wealthy or powerful or famous to experience happiness. You don’t have to postpone your appreciation of the finer things in life until you have reached your career goals. You can live a life that is as joyful and rewarding as you might wish, starting right now.
Anyone can give money to charity, but the real rewards lie in the giving of yourself and your time.
For little more that the price of a movie ticket anyone can attend a symphony orchestra. The music is just as stirring from the back of a concert hall during an afternoon matinee as it is from high up in a private box on opening night. You don’t have to own a Rembrandt to appreciate his incredible genius. Given with sincerity, a single, long-stemmed rose can be more meaningful than a dozen orchids. The price of admission to a fabulous sunset is still free.
You don’t have to be rich to live richly. All of the happiness and fulfillment you want can be yours right now simply by changing how you feel and what you think about this trail of life we call lifestyle. Being rich is a mindset, not a bank account. In fact, even if you have been blessed with material riches and are able to enjoy a lifestyle free from economic bondage that is not your ultimate goal.
The Apostle Paul instructed us in 1 Timothy 6:17-18 that there are riches which are much more important, “Teach those who are rich in this world not to be proud and not to trust in their money, which is so unreliable. Their trust should be in God, who richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment. Tell them to use their money to do good. They should be rich in good works and generous to those in need, always being ready to share with others.”
We are deliberately taking our trek slowly on The Five Trails on Life’s Trek as we begin our hike today on the Trail of Lifestyle. Today we learned what lifestyle is and how lifestyle is more of a result of our attitude than our resources. What type of lifestyle do you live?
Next Philosophy Friday we will continue on our fifth trail, the Trail of Lifestyle as we learn that lifestyle is not an amount but a reflection of who and what we are. So join us next Friday for these additional insights. I know you will find these insights interesting and profitable in living a rich and satisfying life.
Our next trek is on Monday, and we will continue our series called The Tools in Gramps’ Backpack where we will equip you with the tools needed to impact the lives of others. So encourage your friends and family to join us and then come along on Monday for another day of our Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.
That will finish our trek for today. If you would like to listen to any of the past daily treks or read the daily journal, they are available at Wisdom-Trek.com. You can also subscribe on iTunes and Google Play so that each day’s trek will be downloaded automatically.
Thank you for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, and most of all your friend as I serve you through the Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal.
As we take this trek of life together, let us always:
- Live Abundantly (Fully)
- Love Unconditionally
- Listen Intentionally
- Learn Continuously
- Lend to others Generously
- Lead with Integrity
- Leave a Living Legacy Each Day
This is Guthrie Chamberlain reminding you to Keep Moving Forward, Enjoy Your Journey, and Create a Great Day Every Day! See you on Monday!