And then…everything changes

You know that feeling you have when everything is great? You feel immortal. That’s how I’ve been feeling lately. I have a perfect girlfriend, an awesome new job, great family and friends. I really couldn’t have been happier, things couldn’t have been better. And then, on Tuesday, everything changed…

I got stabbed and mugged by a crazed junkie here in downtown Montreal, right after work.

I’m currently at home recovering. All in all, the doctors say I was lucky in my unluckiness. I’m not going to lie, it’s not easy. Not only do you have to deal with the physical repercussions, but there’s all the other stuff as well. I’ve spending quite of bit of time trying to think of lessons to be learned. I don’t know that there’s one big lesson here, but this is what I have so far…

• Do. Because of all that happened, I wasn’t able to complete the Hack Your Life Challenge #3. But the reality is I waited. I had all of Monday and most of Tuesday to do it, but I waited. “I have until Sunday” kept telling myself. Except I didn’t. Do it now.
• People. Surround yourself with great people. I was so lucky to have support from people from all around — family, friends, colleagues. You can’t go through stuff like that alone. Find people that will push you up.
• Push harder. Sometimes you got to push yourself just a little bit harder. When I was in the hospital, all the doctors and nurses were focused on getting me out of bed. It was’t easy. Everything hurt. But pushing yourself is the only way to move on. Don’t push, just to push. Push harder when it’s worth it.

But I think the biggest lesson I’ve learned is love what you’re doing right now. Everybody says that and I never understood quite how true that was until last Tuesday. It’s not about missing it when it’s gone, it’s about being happy about what you’re doing it as you are living it. And it’s not just your job, it’s every part of you life. Because you never know when it will all be gone. I know that sounds cheesy, but I just learnt how true that really was.

Hack Your Life Challenge #4

I wasn’t able to complete Challenge #3 because I waited. I’ll be taking on that challenge for myself when I’m back out in the real world. But here’s what I’m proposing for you this week. I know it will sound easy, but I convinced now, more than ever, that this is important. Set-up a happyness metric. I wrote happiness with a y because happiness is yours to determine and not what everyone says it should be. You might be happy as a freelancer or a stay-at-home mom or working in a cubicle, or travelling the world…if it works for you, than that’s all that matters.

Why?

We live in the age of the Internet where everything is measurable. You should be able to gage how happy you are with your life. I’ll be using Steve Jobs’s method of asking myself every morning:

If this were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I’m about to do today?

And to that I’ll add why? Why would I want or not want to do what I was about to do today.

It sounds easy on the surface, but I think this will be the greatest challenge of them all. Being completely happy to live every moment is the greatest gift you can give yourself. Sure there will be tough clients, traffic jams, crowded malls, irate bosses and government processes, but none of it matters in the long run.

I’ll be setting-up a happyness metric, but I’ll be gaining a complete life.

Past challenges

If you’re new here, on the first week of January I started the Hack Your Life Project. Each week I challenge myself to explore the details of the programmable system that is my life and stretch its capabilities, as opposed to most of us, who only prefer to learn the minimum necessary. I no longer want to breeze through my life, but take control of it.

These are the past challenges:

1. Hack your life | Get rid of excess clothing
2. #HYLP Challenge #2 | Turn off the electronics
3. Hack Your Life Project | Hello stranger

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