What Being Naked Really Means…

A few hours after the start of the New Year, my husband and I talked about what we wanted to do and achieve in 2010. One thing led to another and we made the decision that the time had come to move from the small town we were living in to a place that was more in harmony with our beliefs and lifestyle.

During the next month or so, we tossed around all kinds of ideas as to where we would live. The world is truly small and we wanted to explore all of our options. The irony is that when you have so many options, you kind of get lost especially if you have traveled the world as much as we have.

After much discussion, we settled on living in a beach town along the Atlantic Ocean side of Southern Florida. We loved the concept of the ocean being right there as well as the fact that there is a huge raw food/vegan community that values the concept of sustainability. Plus, there are a lot of practitioners of Eastern thought in the area. In addition to all of this, neither one of us had lived in Florida so we figured it would be a new adventure for the two of us.

As we shared our plans with others, an interesting thing began to happen. Many people were surprised that we would just move to a new place without having any jobs lined up or having any family in the area. You would think we were committing a crime based on all the reactions we received.

Soon after making the decision to move, I figured that since we were already jumping off the cliff by moving to a new town, why not pursue a lifelong dream of being my own boss.

I have always been suspicious of big business and here I was contemplating the idea of launching my own business. Could a Buddhist be a business owner? Was there a conflict? My hunch told me that there was no conflict as long as my intentions were in line with my spiritual beliefs. My brain, however, was not so sure.

So I began to research the topic of launching my own business. After reading over twenty books on the topic, I started to realize that creating a business was nothing like I ever imagined. It was truly not only a spiritual act on some level but a work of art if done with the right intention and focus.

Money is an important force in our world. However, due to fear, we think it controls us as opposed to us controlling it. No where is it said in any holy book that a person is meant to be miserable and have a job that they hate in order to survive. We have created that reality.

I know that for most of my working life, I have worked at jobs that were not in line with my passion because I just did not know how to make a living by doing what I loved.

Eventually, I decided to go ahead and launch my own business. Inevitably, I started to realize that I would need money to do all that I wanted. As life would have it, someone who knew what I wanted to do decided to be my investor and help me achieve my dream.

Within two weeks, we will be moving down to Florida.  Within the next couple of months, I will launch my business. Am I scared? No. I am more concerned about the prospect of hurricanes.

I have no idea what the road ahead will be like. Anything is possible and I love that. There is no set formula as to what constitutes a happy life. We each have our own definition.

What I do know for a fact is that in order to make the most out of being alive, we have to be honest and true with ourselves. When this year began, I realized that the time had come for me to face the fact that the time had come to stop doing a job for money and start working on something that I love.

The way I saw it was that if I continued doing what I had been doing it would be like selling my soul for money. I have been spiritual in every other area of my life except for this one and the time had come for a change.

I have come to realize that in order to make the most out of being alive, you have to be naked. Being naked does not mean having no clothes on. It means having no delusions or lies about yourself. You can cheat the world but you can never cheat yourself.

If you are unhappy in your life, acknowledge it and then you can begin to work on creating the life that you desire.

Nothing of value was ever achieved by playing it safe. Sometimes jumping off the cliff is a very wise act.