God and the Beach

Recently,I had an epiphany. It seems so obvious to me now, but I hadn't realized that for decades, I, like countless others, had actually bought into a nasty belief system - the belief system of “You’ve got to work hard to get ahead.”

It’s quite amazing how this epiphany came to me. I was meditating and focusing on light shining from within my heart. I told myself this is where God is, within me. This was an epiphany in itself because I had always previously thought of God existing from somewhere outside of myself. But there He was, right inside my heart. Him and the entire power of the Universe. How cool.

So then, I figured if God was right there in my heart, maybe I could talk to Him. So I say to God, “Hey, what am I supposed to be doing?” And I get this visual of a beautiful, jolly, light-filled man with a white beard and rosy cheeks (ok, I admit maybe my vision was perhaps influenced by the fact it was so close to Christmas) and he is smiling and pointing to the turquoise waters of the ocean and a white sand beach.

God wants me to go to the beach? Perhaps he misunderstood. I want to know what I am supposed to be doing in a larger context. What is my life purpose? Why did I come here?

And that’s when the epiphany came. My life purpose is to live the good life – whatever that means to me- not the hard life. God's job for me is to feel joy. I came here to do things that will make me feel joy. And by participating in activities that bring me joy, like a tropical beach vacation, I actually make the world a more joyful place. So here's another epiphany: going on vacation is not a vacation at all! It's actually work, God's work. I am actually in service to God by going on a tropical beach vacation because that is something that truly brings me immense joy! And who am I to dismiss God’s wishes? So off I went to Punta Cana in January, and God was right (as He usually is). I had the most joyous time of my life.

You see, we got it all wrong. It’s not about putting in time. It’s not about suffering. And it’s not about sacrifice. It’s not any of those things. How often do we fore go down time to work because we think that is more worthy, more productive? And how many times do we think it is inappropriate to bring fun into work – that to be professional you must be serious and stoic? To do God's work and be productive and make a difference in the world, just start adding joy to the world. Laugh, joke, make light of things. Have fun. Take a vacation. And adopt a new belief system: You have to work easy to get ahead. Understand if it’s hard work, it’s not God’s work; it’s your own.

And guess what else? God’s work pays pretty well. You start doing God’s work and pretty soon you got more joy than you ever imagined. And the more joy you have, the more you allow for all stuff that personifies joy to come to you – things like money, love, health, romance, a new car, you name it.

And as I finally got the point, the epiphany I call it, God nods his head, laughs, and gives me a wink as if to say, “You got it kiddo. Good work…now was that so hard?”