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Find an agent today at Desjardins.com slash business coverage. This is Optimal Living Daily, episode 1937, Life Invaders 3, Return of Responsibility, by Greg Audino of gregaudino.com. And I'm Justin Malik, the guy who's been reading articles or book excerpts to you every day, including holidays for over five years, covering personal development or self-help, how to live a better life and a lot more. It's always with permission from the authors or websites.
Today's post is from Greg Audino, who hosts two of our other podcasts on our network. Search for Optimal Relationships Daily and Optimal Living Advice to hear his shows and voice. But preferably after we hear today's episode, so with that, let's get right to it and continue optimizing your life. Life Invaders 3, Return of Responsibility, by Greg Audino of gregaudino.com.
Being responsible is one of those concepts whose meaning changes drastically as life goes on. For most middle-class children, for example, responsibility is first introduced when they're old enough to receive a toy. Parents leave it to them to not break, lose, swallow, or fashion a murder weapon out of the toy. Time goes on and as they've matured a few years later, responsibility extends past their own belongings and into a more communal aspect like doing chores around the house.
Then after that, it might mean looking after another life in a minimal sense, such as taking care of a hamster or being sure to look after the new younger sibling at school. High school comes around and responsibility turns into grades, maybe a part-time job, and that old, sex and drugs thing. College, while still very much about sex and drugs, becomes about responsibility for one's future, then it's an adult job, then it's a family, and so on. Depending on who you are, you might be behind on pace with or ahead of the schedule throughout your whole life.
You might f*** things up as a kid and then right the ship in your 30s, or you might be too responsible as a kid, and by your 20-year high school reunion, you're the spectacular downward spiral that makes your old classmates feel better about their lives. There is, however, a crossroads on the path of responsibility that nearly everyone takes the wrong turn at no matter how many times they find themselves there. Before I go there, however, I think it's valuable to share with you the experience I had with a book I read recently. The book is called Busting Loose from the Money Game, written by Robert Scheinfeld.
But Busting Loose from the Money Game is hardly about money, it's more about our perception of reality. In short, Scheinfeld believes, backed by studies in quantum physics, that everything we experience in life is a hologram, if you will, that every single thing you know, including me, dolphins, the sky, and your parents, are mere projections coming from a reality that exceeds time and space. He states that we are all playing what he refers to as the human game, and every limit we think that exists in our version of reality is really only there because our limiting beliefs have made them so, so not having enough money, for example. Therefore, Scheinfeld makes it known immediately upon opening the book that the book itself is an invitation to overcome any limit you know in life, because in it he shares a process that you can apply in any stressful situation.
The trick is that the more you apply and come to believe in this process, slowly but surely the walls of life will be broken down, and you will eventually be living in a utopia of sorts. I don't want to share with you the entire process, as I'd rather not reveal the whole core of the book, it's better that you read it for yourself, but part of the process includes acknowledging any stress in your life as being manifested by you and your set of beliefs up until that point. Now, that probably sounds absolutely banana lands, but personally, I love this book. At first, it pissed me off because I felt it was severely minimizing all significant relationships in my life, which it is, when I'm keeping pace with my little philosophy of hearing everyone out, I stayed with it, and I found a new and unexpected value in it, and to me, the value doesn't have much to do with whether or not you believe what he's saying, but it does have a lot to do with responsibility.
Entertaining ideas as outlandish as Scheinfeld's is key for harvesting a more open mind towards all things in life. So after I got through reading this book, I was in a rhythm of trying to see things differently than I ever had before, the way that he preached things, so just questioning the reality of my world around me. I really just felt like I was in a f***ing video game. I felt like I was put into a video game in which I was the main character and every single thing I came in contact with was a reflection of how I lived my life up to that point.
Every single thing I'd come in contact with going forward was dependent on any action I'd take, and looking at life in that way brought more importance and less coincidence to all things I crossed paths with. What this really means is that I found myself responsible for everything, regardless of how little it seemed as though I had to do with it in the first place, and this is precisely the direction that it's so easy for people to walk away from when arriving at their crossroads. You see, we like responsibility within reason. It feels nice to tell ourselves we're responsible, and it's a point of pride to act responsibly towards that which we've deemed as our responsibility.
We're told that it's right to stay in our lane and finish what we start, but transcending that is not what most people sign up for, and that's why blame and entitlement kick in the face of that which we call unfair. Getting laid off, having a tree fall on our house, or getting chlamydia from that trustworthy bar patron who swore they'd been tested last week. We've out and cry out, I did everything I was supposed to do, I followed all the rules, how could this happen? Or depending on the situation, sometimes we like to deflect responsibility and say, eh, it's the government's fault, we need to change the government, or it's in God's hands.
That's not very nice, I bet God doesn't like that. And sure, if you're part of the 99.9% of the world that doesn't buy into Scheinfeld's theory, then no, things like this aren't a result of anything you've done, but they've been put into your life regardless, and what happens next is up to you. The trick is this guys, for as much as we like reverting back to childhood and blaming others for our problems and giving up when unfair stuff happens to us, there's an unexpected catharsis that comes with taking on more responsibility, because that brings us a greater sense of control over our own lives. It's not a matter of telling everyone else what to do and how to live their lives, but instead, not shying away from things, not feeling fearful to engage in that what scares you, and not giving your power away to an unknown something that you normally think could put you at risk for some kind of backlash.
Taking deliberate responsibility for things that aren't a part of your plan, gets you comfortable with the uncomfortable, and obtaining this fearlessness and courage to step away from your plan if need be, puts you back in the driver's seat and helps you rise to the occasion of life. Step in, can you handle it? So the reason this is titled like a video game is that that's my challenge for you today. No, you don't have to buy into what everything Robert Scheinfeld is saying, but get out there, broaden your horizons, and pretend you're in a video game in which this is all fake and everything in front of you is there because you put it there.
It's there for a reason. Everyone and everything has the ability to guide you, and reacting to all of it properly, responsibly, and attentively is the only way to level up. You just listened to the post titled, Life Invaders 3, Return of Responsibility, by Greg Audino of gregaudino.com. I personally really enjoy articles, movies, books, and the like that really question our realities.
There's one YouTube video I shared in the old podcast.com weekly newsletter a few weeks back that still enters my mind from time to time when I find myself judging other people or feeling excessively affected by someone else's actions. The video is called The Egg, a short story written by Andy Weir, a software engineer turned writer. He also wrote The Martian, which turned into a popular movie. Anyway, I don't want to spoil The Egg, the short story, but it's sort of a what if on life, kind of like what we heard in today's episode.
What if reality isn't what it seems? There's so many possibilities and our brains can only handle so much in terms of what we can see, hear, touch, taste, smell, and even think. So for me, it's nice to get a really sometimes bizarre outside perspective because a small shift can really change the way we behave for the better. You never know.
Again, if you like these types of strange posts or books or media that make you question your reality and things like that, you can look for The Egg, a short story on YouTube by Andy Weir. So thank you Greg for that one. You can hear him narrate posts on Optimal Relationships Daily covering all things relationships including relationships with yourself or answer your life questions on Optimal Living Advice he answers them for you. Definitely check those out and hit follow or subscribe.
You can do that in any free podcast app. Have a great rest of your day and I'll be back tomorrow where you're Optimal Life, no weights.