What Makes You Feel Enthusiastic?

When you wake up in the morning, are you full of enthusiasm for the day? This becomes a very important — an existential question — to ask yourself, as we only have today. Tomorrow is just a figment of your imagination.

Think about it: waking up, dreading the day, feeling sluggish, with the mentality that you hear all the time…

“It’s just another day…”

“Another day, another dollar…”

is a complete lack of vitality and spirit — or simply, enthusiasm for the day.

To Be Possessed by a God

When you look at the word enthusiasm, its etymological roots derive from:

En — in
Theos — god

Or more specifically:

enthousiasmos — having a God within

This excitement, this eagerness for the day, fuels through me each and every morning. When I wake up, the first thing I do is attack.

I strap on my 40-pound plate carrier, I hit the pull-up bar, do some push-ups, some dumbbell exercises, some yoga, etc. I hit the coffee, make a video, do some writing, script out some future lectures, and go for a nature hike.

When I hit the nature hike and I’m surrounded by beauty — from the trees, the feeling of the breeze, the sun kissing my skin — despite whether or not it’s a cloudy or rainy day, I feel this insatiable lust for life flowing through me.

It derives from that childlike curiosity that I possess — like I’m possessed by a god, the root of what it means to be enthusiastic.

When I listen to the birds chirping, and the beautiful songs of the bugs humming, it’s like I’m having a communion with the gods, and I’m just so eager, so enthusiastic, so excited to put my body in motion.

Motivation Is in Your Legs

The word motivation derives from:

movere — to move

In order to become motivated, one must move their physical body. The problem with modern life is that we are sedentary for most of our days — which is an ultimate tragedy, I believe.

Honestly, I think boredom, stagnation, and the inability to move your physical body throughout the day is the ultimate demise of humankind right now.

It’s actually something that makes me feel really sad — almost like I just have this compassion for the modern world in a way — as it’s so tragic, so life-denying, that we sequester ourselves indoors.

How to Rest

I believe that our bodies are like batteries, and the sun is the charger.

The best way to rest is to simply lay out in the grass, to absorb the sun’s rays. Anytime there’s sun out, I make sure to hit the park, remove my shirt, and absorb the sun for at least 30 minutes to an hour.

After spending this time in the sun, I feel so recharged — with so much more exuberance of energy. It’s like we are flowers, just like the plants undergoing photosynthesis. And in order to complete that charge within your circuit, you need to plug yourself into the sun itself.

So What Makes Me Feel So Enthusiastic?

The honest answer to this question is: I just simply assume that today will be my last day, and that I may not wake up tomorrow.

Because of this, everything that comes to me in the morning is in abundance.

The simple pleasures of walking, drinking clean water, coffee, making art, reading, surrounding myself in nature’s beauty — this is enough for me to feel enthusiastic.

I think I feel so much enthusiasm, genuinely, because I have a deep connection to God.

My relationship with God has come full circle, to a point where nothing can break my spirit. Nothing can break my lust for life because I put all of my faith within God.

When you look at the word itself — enthusiasm — it makes sense, doesn’t it?

I never feel lonely, despite being alone, because I know that I have a strong relationship with the Creator. When you have that strong relationship with something higher — the divine — you can’t help but smile, and move onward into the chaos with a strong gait, walking, moving, and conquering each day.

This is what gives me strength.
This is my true source of vitality.
This is what uplifts my spirit and fuels me with enthusiasm for the day.
It’s my relationship with the Most High.

There’s More to Life Than Paying Your Bills

What does success look like in the modern world?

Paying your bills, reporting on time, making the quota, advancing your business endeavors, buying the fancy car, marrying that supermodel… all of these base-level goals mean nothing to me.

There’s more to life than just paying your bills, surviving, or even achieving any sort of material success.

While I understand the horizontal plane of this material world is something we have to acknowledge — as I need food, shelter, clothes on my back, etc. — there’s something really base and meaningless when this becomes your day-to-day life.

However, aligning myself vertically, towards the divine, I find so much more rich meaning and fulfillment in my life.

I encourage you to deeply contemplate what this means, and how you can achieve this inner peace through a connection to something greater.

It’s truly life-affirming, and life-fulfilling, when you find deep meaning in your everyday life because of it.

Life can feel like doom and gloom, or meaningless, when you’re simply going through the motions and surviving.

But when you’re full of enthusiasm, striving onwards and upwards —
I believe that we can truly thrive.