What question is being asked?

There’s a story behind that.

This is your daily message from Chad number 1209 to upgrade your mental game today by telling yourself a better story, because the most important story you hear is the story you tell yourself. And this message is dedicated to Hari Sampath.

If you haven’t followed or subscribed or whatever way your podcast player gives you to connect, please do. It’s an easy way to help others find these messages.

Here’s the upgrade:

You may be waiting for life to tell you what it means, but upgraded thinking understands life is the one asking the questions, and you answer with how you show up.

Here’s the story:

What is the meaning of life? People have asked that for as long as there have been people. Viktor Frankl turned the question around. In the concentration camps, he watched men give up when they stopped expecting anything from life. He wrote, “It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us.”

Stop asking life what it means. Start answering what life is asking of you. And Frankl said how: “Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct.” Meaning isn’t buried treasure. You don’t dig it up. You answer for it.

So how does life ask? For me, it asks through my roles. Husband. Father. Every role places a demand on me every day. That demand is the question.

Here’s how I try to answer. Energy first. If I’m depleted, I’m a worse husband and a worse dad. So sleep, training, and meditation aren’t selfish. They’re service. Outperform the contract. Every close relationship has an invisible agreement. What my wife and kids have every right to expect from me. Most of us live at the bare minimum of that contract. Relationships rarely break from one big betrayal. They wear down from a pile of mediocrity. So I ask: what’s one thing I can do today that goes beyond what’s expected? Be present in the role I’m playing. Epictetus said to play the role you’ve been given, and play it well. Do you know the roles you’ve been given? You can’t play the past “you” or future “you”. You can only be present in the part you have to play in the present. The present is the stage you’re on now.

There’s an old story of three men cutting stone. Someone asks what they’re doing. The first says, “I’m cutting stone.” The second says, “I’m building a wall.” The third says, “I’m building a cathedral.” Same work. Same tools. Same aching back. Completely different meaning. Your roles are the cathedral. The extra five minutes. The specific question. The phone set down. Those are the stones. Most days they feel ordinary. But nobody else can lay them. No one else can play your part in your family. That’s where the meaning is. Only you can play the part you’ve been given.

The better story to tell yourself is, “Life is asking the questions and how I answer is totally up to me.”

Tell me a story of outperforming the contract to fromchadsmith@gmail.com. Send someone a text and ask them, “How are you answering the question life is asking you right now?” You can get a free copy of my book, The Most Powerful Story in the World, by going to fromchad.gumroad.com. The transcript of this message and hundreds of others are always available at http://www.fromchad.com.