“When life demands more of people than they demand of life – as is ordinarily the case – what results is a resentment of life almost as deep-seated as the fear of death”

- Tom Robbins

What do you demand of life?

David Allen used that quote in his “Getting Things Done” book, and I remember reading it and thinking about the amount of work that I did for others, and how little I demanded in return.

I don’t refer to compensation; money by itself does not represent anything real. Neither do I mean getting something back out of a gesture… a good deed that demands something in return stops being good and becomes a service.

I’m referring to how many of your initiatives you do for yourself, and what do you ask in return of your sacrifices.

In college, one of my teachers spoke of “Responsible Egoism”; this was a concept that changed me in a fundamental way: “Not feeding your ego, taking care of those that surround you, but never forgetting yourself”

There is this social stigma with individual thinking, the threat of being called “egoist” and the way we demonize the “taking care of #1”  concept, leads us into being embarrassed any time we try to care for our future and interests.

It’s just that there is so much more to life than getting up in the morning to go to work, chasing the “Friday” rainbow for the “weekend” pot of gold, and every time it just goes 7 days away again. This total lack of attention to things that make you happy generates the anxiety that leads to our generation’s favorite addiction: work.

“If I only got a raise, I would have enough money for…”, “It’s just for a little while then I can focus on my dream”, “the economy is tough”.

Yeah, ok, many of those things are true in certain situations, but what I ask is: What are you demanding in return?

“I demand to spend more time with my kids”, “I require respect at work”, “I need that all new project teaches me something”, are all valid responses to any sacrifice you have to make in a particular situation.

Money is important as a trading tool, but on a “reality” level, its hard for our brains to wrap around the concept of a million bucks, even if I transferred them to your account today, it would not provide a feeling of wholeness and completion. It would probably be very exalting, and surely it would be key to achieving many dreams, but the mere existence of the cash in your account does not provide self-realization, this can only be achieved with goals that transcend the material and a number, and must be demanded out of life.

So take stock of how much you are giving away, and make a balance of what you are asking in return, and in some way, try and get more out of life.