A LETTER FROM CHRIS SUAREZ
IT’S YOUR BONUS ROUND
I came across a Marcus Aurelius quote this week that I’ve been thinking about and wanted to share with you all. This became the basis of four truths that I wrote down and have been journaling about. Aurelius wrote:
“Think of the life you have lived until now as over and … see what’s left as a bonus and live it accordingly.”
The statement caused me to stop and imagine that yesterday was the last day of my current life, and tomorrow I start over, knowing everything I happen to know up to this point. When I read it, I immediately wrote down a few thoughts. I share them here in bold with some trailing thoughts.
Regret only serves a purpose when learned from.
Most of us have negative emotions around the word regret. We tie it to a backwards look or glance at history - with most of the time it being a past we can’t change or a history we can’t affect moving forward. We think about relationships that ended, lives that were lost, opportunities missed, or things left unsaid. And so when we think about regret, it carries with it some emotional weight. But the ability to regret something from the past in the current moment provides an opportunity. It should give us a look into the future with the possibility of doing something different. It could be as simple as handling a situation differently or as significant as becoming a different person in how we treat people or view our future path. If we can learn the reasons for our past regrets, we can level set and chart out a different future.
We treat bonus rounds differently.
When we are playing any game and end up with a bonus round, things change. We play all in. We take more risks. We have nothing to lose, because in most cases, we didn’t know we’d have another chance. Unfortunately too often in real life, we will assume the chances will just keep coming. That we’ll always have another morning, evening, weekend, season. And so we play not to lose, instead of playing all in to win. We hold back. We take cautious moves and make timid plays. In the bonus round it’s different. What if life were different? What if we viewed tomorrow as a bonus round. Research shows that humans make different life decisions when they feel they received a second shot, a bonus round if you will. Learn from them. What really matters often shows up too late. Bring bonus round energy to your game today.
Find temporal or emotional landmarks in your life.
At times, the ending of a phase of life can be sad. We miss the past. We don’t want things to change. And yet a new beginning is one of the most motivating moments we can ask for. A temporal landmark is a moment in time that breaks us from the past and gives us a sense of a fresh start and with that, renewed energy. These can come naturally as we start a new job, a new year, a new relationship. These can be handed to us through a broken relationship or a loss of a loved one. They can also be manufactured - as we decide to move forward at any moment with a different perspective, a fresh attitude, or new mission. Architect a landmark and set out from there. Let’s not wait until life engineers one for us.
Life is about thinking, saying, and doing. Do.
In order to live a highly designed life, it takes thinking. It takes saying. And it takes doing. It’s so easy to think about what we want to do or imagine how we want our lives to look in the future. It’s so easy to talk about what things will be like. And then life has a way of reminding us that we may not all get that bonus. So just do. Do it today. Do it for tomorrow. We can all stop thinking and saying, and just put a bit more effort into doing.
Chris Suarez