Come Alive: Live a life with more meaning and joy

By Yu Dan Shi

Yu Dan Shi had the perfect life. She was a successful high-powered corporate climber, a Chinese migrant who made it in Australia. Yet, one day it came crashing down when she was wheeled into an emergency room. That was the painful moment when she realised that her life was seriously out of balance and she needed to change how she lived her life.

In this book she writes about the lessons she learned from that scary moment and how she changed her life for the better. It is a guide for those of us who put off living today because they need to do “just one more thing”, and how one should rebalance their lives so that they will be happy now rather than live for a future goal that may never arrive.

Quotes

My plan was to enjoy life after I had secured financial freedom, after I had made enough money, paid off my mortgage and sent my girls to university. On that fateful day, as I lay on the cold, hard gurney, I realised it was a very bad plan.

I realised I was not unhappy. I simply had never allowed myself to be happy until I had got to another destination, until I had ticked another box. I didn’t feel that I deserved to be happy until I had reached my final destination, wherever that was.

I thought I only had to persist for a few more years, then the pain would be gone and I would live happily ever after. This voice in my head kept telling me, “I will be happy soon, it’s just around the next corner.”

Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it. – Maya Angelou

My original intent behind pursuing a successful corporate career was a good one: I wanted to help my family and live a better life. Being driven to achieve goals was a good trait. However, I let my career ambition and the endless chasing of goals overtake me.

I had been running so fast and was so sure all my hard work would pay dividends. I bet my entire career to win this prize – a place where I no longer felt poor, unsafe, worthless and weak.

We work harder and harder, always imagining a future where we don’t have to work anymore.

You may have already experienced several career changes, only to feel empty and unfulfilled time and time again.

Lessons

1. “Care Less” is about being courageous and truthful: letting go the concern how others think of us and live a life more authentically

2. We don’t always have to choose between our profession and our passion – you can bring passion into your life and pursue your aspirations in many creative ways.

3. We often put our passions and aspirations on hold unless we can turn them into a living. We then wonder why our joy disappears

4. When you have unwavering trust in your decisions and capabilities, it motivates you and cements how you want to live your life.

4. The reality is, the longer you delay making positive changes to your current situation, the more defeated you will feel and the less willpower you will have to make the change.

5. Create your own source of joy every day. It will give you enough fuel in the tank to embrace opportunity when it does arrive.

6. Viktor Frankl (Man’s Search for Meaning) learned that the meaning of life is in *every moment of living.* He observed how some people were consumed by hopelessness and killed themselves before being killed by someone else, yet others were able to find meaning and small joys in the worst posible time.

7. When you spend more time in the areas you are not naturally good at. Once a high performer, they will struggle to keep up and gradually go from thriving to surviving.

8. Our current situation is the result of our long-term behavior, mindset and habits

9. Learn to reflect on and accept how you have contributed to your external environment. Otherwise, the same stressful situations will emerge time and time again, even after you have landed a better job or started a passion business.

10. Instead of making drastic changes, learn to improve your current situation while bringing in new experiences and habits over time. This gradual process gives you the opportunity to reflect on what has got in the way and what adjustments you need to ma

11. The easier way to achieve your goals is to feel motivated and energised daily. This allows your body to recover naturally, so you don’t need to draw on supreme willpower all the time. We all have a limited supply of willpower and energy to draw from.

12. When we only focus on the pleasure of external goals, it creates a void that can never be filled. We can acquire more things or more accolades, but they only serve temporary needs. Like an addiction, the only way to feel happy again is to acquire more.