During the summer of 2000, I began an eighteen-month,
in-depth study of the highest grossing blockbusters produced during the 90’s.
My goal was to comprehend what compels people to spend their money at the box
office. Why? Because, as a screenwriter, I wanted a piece of that
billion-dollar industry. And what better way to learn how to write a screenplay
than by studying successful movies.
I was certain that every great film had underlying mechanics
at play and I was determined to be the first to discover them. I wanted to know
to what, specifically, the audience responded. After eighteen months of
dedicated movie watching, I found the answers.
My commitment to film study was pretty intense at that time.
I worked only two or three days a week which was enough to pay my rent, pay the
utilities, and buy a few groceries. The rest of my time, I watched movies.
Sometimes five a day. I watched several over a hundred times each. While I
watched these films, I would dictate every action and every bit of dialogue
from each character. I would later review these notes and try to decipher why
was this movie a success? Why was this one a hit and that other one a dud?
Eventually I did discover what makes a great movie great, and what I learned
also applied to life.
There are seven moments in life that matter the most to us.
Once you understand these seven moments and actively appreciate them when they
occur, you will instantly elevate your enjoyment of life. These moments have
always been right in front of us, yet nobody has ever brought them to our
attention.
You don’t need money to live a fulfilling life. In fact, you
don’t need a job. You don’t need a wife, a husband, or a family. You don’t even
need a car. A fulfilling life has nothing to do with these things.
I imagine some of you are already doubting me ...but I’ll
prove it. Have you ever experienced a day where you finally came home and
slumped into a recliner at the end of a long, busy day and thought to yourself,
“Wow….what a great day!”? Then you went to bed entirely content and “maxed out”
from the day’s events? Everyone has felt that way at one time or another, yet
not everyone has the same possessions. You felt great because of what you
experienced over the course of the day, not because of what you own, your
status symbol, or how much money you earned. The experiences themselves gave
you that sense of contentment.
The seven moments are easy to comprehend. At first you might
not believe how easy it is to use them to enhance your daily life. Over time,
however, you will prove to yourself that these moments are occurring every
single day. You are already experiencing them…everyone is. All I’m going to do
is show you how to recognize them. Expose them. Once you realize what they are,
you will inevitably realize how powerful they are, all seven of them; and then
you can immediately improve the quality of your life.
Sedated
I’ve been sedated for a large portion of my life. If you’re
an American, chances are high that you are too. In fact, I’d liken us Americans
to zombies. The walking American dead. Our human spirit has been lulled to
sleep. We seek external visual nourishment for our human spirit rather than
experiencing it firsthand for ourselves.
The vast majority of us go to work every day. We have our
morning routines, our lunch time rituals, and our evening relaxation at home
before we go to bed, all this so we can get up and do it all over again. Most
people will never escape the daytime work environment. As you will read later
in this book, work is an excellent source of nourishment for the human spirit.
But what do we do with our time after work?
Television
When we get home from work, most of us plop down on the
couch and turn on the television to watch actors live a simulated life that is
more enriching than our own. We follow these television dramas, comedies, and
mysteries because they are feeding our human spirit better than we are feeding
ourselves. We live through television. What is inside these television shows that
appeals to us? What is missing in our own lives?
Sports
We attach ourselves to great athletes. We admire them. We cheer for them. We follow
their careers and debate over who is the better competitor. We watch these
superstars compete all season long, and then we get excited over “the big game”
when the best players battle against each other for the championship title.
What are they doing that compels us to watch? What can we do to satisfy this
need of ours by changing the things we do every day?
Video Games
The video game craze is stronger than ever. According to The
Entertainment Software Association, the average game player spends 23.4 hours a
week playing video games. That's a lot of time spent in front of the computer
or television. For the rest of Americans that don’t, it's very hard to
understand why kids (and adults) devote so much of their life to video games.
Watching television programs, playing video games, or
following an athlete’s career are perfect examples of neglecting our own human
spirit. We are no longer actively participating in our own lives and have
become spectators of other people living a simulated life. We are satisfying
our needs by watching someone else live the moments that human nature requires
us to experience. I have not had cable television for over five years. I have
no need for it. If I need the news, I get it from the internet; or I buy a
newspaper. My life is filled with the seven moments that I generate in real
life, rather than watching someone else live the seven moments on a television
show.
If indeed we are asleep and neglecting our own personal
involvement in life, how can we get back on track? How can we start
experiencing life instead of watching someone else live?
By sharing what I have learned, I am positive that you will
be able to increase your daily enjoyment of life by making new choices
throughout your day. You can immediately start generating these moments within
your own life. At the same time, you can decrease the amount of time you spend
watching someone else live. Believe me, life is far more interesting when you
experience the seven moments firsthand.
Read this book. Put its principles into action. I promise
you it will be a painless experience. It doesn’t matter who you are, where you
live, or how much money you have. You can be broke. You can be homeless. You
can be a bored gazillionaire. You can be stuck in a dead-end job working 40
hours a week with debt over your head and no hope for financial freedom for
another forty years. Awakening your human spirit and feeling alive again can
happen in the next few hours. This book will show you how. Start now, and start
living again.
The next part of this article series is titled, How To
Improve Your Quality of Life by using the Seven Moments - Moment #1.
