If I were to ask you what it means to be fulfilled, what would your answer be?
Would you be fulfilled if you had a wife, a family, a dog, and a house with a white picket fence outside?
Would you be fulfilled if you had all the money in the world and could do whatever you wanted when you wanted to?
I feel as if it is easy to picture what fulfillment looks like by putting ourselves into hypothetical scenarios without ever actually experiencing it.
The truth of the matter is, there are plenty of people that are married with children and not happy.
There are plenty of people with all of the money in the world, have bought everything known to mankind, and are still not truly fulfilled.
Reverting back to the question I asked at the very beginning, what is fulfillment?
What does it mean to truly be fulfilled in life?
This is a question I have thought about a lot over the last two years.
Sometimes I think back to what my life was like before I started training horses and I think about what my mindset was like at the time, what my goals were like at the time, and the direction in which I saw my life going.
When I lived in Vegas and worked as a performer, I had a goal to be in live entertainment so that I could build up a resume and move to Hollywood and be an actor in movies.
You all know this story by now so I will not continue to beat on the same drum here.
But what is interesting about when I think back to this period of my life, is that I was never truly fulfilled in what I was doing.
When people ask me what my life was like as a Chippendale performer, I tell them straight up that my life was boring!
While working at Chippendales was fun because I got to go to work and tell jokes with my friends and have fun, the rest of my time living in Vegas was quite boring.
I sat around and read books all day, while getting a workout in before I had to go to work at night for a couple of hours.
I was not out in all hours of the night, drinking, partying, and gambling because that is not my style and it never has been.
Yes, there was never a shortage of women given what I used to do for a living, but I was not one to go out with different women every single night to try and get laid.
The reason why I don't party or try and woo tons of women is because these types of behaviors bring no fulfillment.
I don't need to drink and get hammered just so I can wake up feeling like shit the next day and be late getting to the gym.
I don't need to have anymore one night stands with women I will never see or talk to again because there simply is no fulfillment in doing do.
All men know this to be true when it comes to casual one night stand hookups with random women - none of it is EVER fulfilling.
Sure there are people that consider these kinds of behaviors to be "fun" when in all reality, it is them chasing short term pleasure and gratification.
Not only is short term gratification not fulfilling, it is entirely counterproductive.
Going out and drinking like a fish all night not only hinders your performance the following day, but destroys your body and your mind.
As soon as you feel like you need to have a drink to have a good time, you have officially lost the game mentally.
Going out and having casual one night stands not only creates narcissistic and psychopathic traits, but it hinders your ability to commit to one person and only one person for the long term.
It wasn't until I went back to my roots and started working with horses again after all of these years that the true meaning of fulfillment began to make sense.
Being able to bond with these animals, have them trust and respect you, and being able to work alongside them is one of the most humbling experiences any human could ever think to imagine.
On top of being able to ranch, do hard and dirty work, use my hands and my brain to solve problem, and go home feeling tired is what I consider to be fulfillment.
Going to the gym and being on a strict routine so that I can be in good shape for the rest of my life is what I consider fulfillment.
Being able to read books and learn new things everyday so that my mind can stay sharp for the rest of my life is where I find fulfillment.
Spending casual time with my friends, family and my animals are what I consider to be fulfillment.
I believe that fulfillment is deeply rooted in one's purpose and their pursuit to work towards their purpose.
Fulfillment comes in things that require long term thinking.
Thinking about what you actually want to be doing for the rest of your life and pursuing that.
You have to at least try and pursue the thing that you take the most interest because who knows, maybe that thing isn't for you and it naturally leads you down the path you are supposed to be on as in what happened to me.
God is extremely rewarding to those who are patient and are willing to sacrifice their short term pleasures for their long term reward.
Fulfillment doesn't come from the outside world, what other people think, or what other people are doing - it comes from finding peace within.
Finding and working for the things, and the people that bring you the most peace makes like worth living.
But first, you must be able to find that peace within yourself.