quit your day job.

What do you really want? When posed the “you’ve just won the lottery” question, a lot of people will run down a list of things they would buy. And it’s remarkable, given how truly different people are, that the lists are so very similar. A big house, a big television, a big car. Hot and cold running servants. Remarkable. It’s okay if somebody wants that. I just find it hard to believe that everybody wants that.

I think that it’s baloney. I think that folks are so out of touch with what they actually want that they rattle off things they think they’re supposed to want; these come from movies and television, mostly — dreamed up by marketing robots who are trying to feed the public what they think it wants, perpetuating a very silly cycle.

So we have to ask ourselves why we want the Robin Leach mansion. Do we have a deep, soul-level need to poop in a different toilet every day, or is it really something more profound that’s going on here? Most of us want things like that because we want to impress friends and relatives — to show them that we’ve made something of ourselves.

Jesus. Do you really need a million dollars to impress your friends? Maybe you need to find some other folks to hang out with.

Maybe that’s not the most important question. You don’t want a big house. You want love and respect. Maybe you don’t want the big car. Maybe you want freedom. But freedom to do what? That’s the real question. Who cares what you would buy — that’s no more interesting than what you’re buying at the grocery store now. What would you do if you won the lottery? Think about that for a minute.

And maybe, just maybe, there’s a version of that you can start doing right now. We need to get out of the possession-focused mode of living and begin to focus on what we’re doing with the gift of this life, this moment. After all, what good is a pile of money unless you’re doing something with it? He who dies with the most toys probably has a tiny wiener.

If you’re looking for an answer, move your ass. You probably should quit your day job. But you don’t have to do it today. Just do something. And then use that momentum to do something else. Along the way, you’ll discover that the universe takes care of its own.

This is about deciding how life ought to be oriented. Are you more interested in what happens to you, or in what happens through you? Put another way, why do you think you’re here? Big question, I know, but let’s go for broad strokes. Is it more likely that your purpose in life is to consume or to produce? In which mode do you feel most fulfilled? It’s interesting to note that often times we feel most fed —spiritually, emotionally, even financially— when we’re the least focused on that end of things.

Before I get too “consider the lilies of the field” on you, let me try a different tack. Pretend you’re working at a large corporation, hired to do a specific job. How good are you going to be at that job, and, consequently, how long do you think you’ll keep that job, if you spend most of your days down in the Payroll department checking on the status of your check?

You’re not in the payroll department. And the less you worry about that, the better things get. As we become less interested in having and more in doing, the means to do will take care of itself.