Why did Mark Twain never work a single day in his life?

What is the benefit of death?
Well I’m starting out with a very sad point but it is the reality for all of us.
If we accept now that we are mortal and that day is sometime in the future, we live a very powerful life.
Late Steve Jobs said and I quote here, “ the benefit of death is you know not to waste life living someone else’s choices.”
This is the real secret to life-to be completely engaged with our own choices with what we are doing in this life here on earth. Our choice shouldn’t be our work, it should be our everyday play.
Human mind is constructed in such a way that we don’t want to work but we want to play.
Both are our own mental activities but the mind distinguishes them pretty quickly.
In reality, work and play are two different things, work is to satisfy others but play is to satisfy ourselves.
Life without our own choice of play is the most common reason to give up early.
We have to have our own choices in life, our own parameters, and we have to stick to them thoroughly.
We can not measure the effectiveness of our own choices in life unless we stick with our own measuring parameters.
Someone else’s choice in life in the long-run gives us nothing but the taste of regret.
The bottom line is if we live in other people’s choices then we regret later in the future.
We must live with our own choice that makes us happy, healthy, and prosperous.

Perfect example, Warren Buffett, who is an American investor, business tycoon, philanthropist, and the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, one of the world’s most powerful companies. He is considered one of the most successful investors of our time. He started his play of choice at age 8 and he is playing his game of choice until now. He is 90 years old now, still active and vibrant with his play.

Most people don’t realize that our own life will echo our own everyday work.
If we become flexible and mindful in our daily work as our everyday play, we not only get better results but our life also becomes better as a result of better play.

Life does not become perfect, only perfect life play makes our life perfect.
If we are not willing to learn the life play, no one can help us but if we are determined to learn the life play, no one can stop us.
Life play doesn’t come easy, it doesn’t come from what we do occasionally.
It always comes from what we do everyday with heart, will, and happiness.
Many of us only hope for a perfect play which is not going to happen anytime soon until we put practice on play.
Only hope of a good life-play in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments on us.
Only hope without practice on play is a daydream.

There are mainly two very different aspects of human minds which guide our choices.
The first is the logical mind which is driven by different thoughts that connect what we already understand in the complex problems in order to produce the solutions.
Most of the time this thought limits us in the comfort zone.
Many more times these thoughts are also influenced by other people’s choices.

The second thought comes from our intuition, driven by inspiration that can look at the problem and immediately figure out the creative solutions.
Most of the time this comes suddenly from our own choice of play.
Intuition is subconscious thought that brings feelings first and when feelings are put into action produces results.

I would like to share a real story about how intuition works and why we should nurture it.
Edwin Land, an inventor of Polaroid cameras, a pioneer of instant photography, was on vacation with his family in 1943.
During this vacation, one of his daughters, 3-year-old, pressed him why she couldn’t see a picture he’d just taken.
She needed it right away.
The impatience of the 3-year-old daughter catalyzes Land for a strong intuition.
After the vacation, Land and his research team threw all of their research effort to the challenge of instant photography.
Instant intuition became similar to instant photography for him.
In only 3-years after that, the product of instant photography was ready in many stores in the market.

Our human nature is intuitive if we practice it in the correct way.
Sometimes we bog down so much how to learn things but what we forget is that unlearning things is more difficult than learning the same.
Our intuition is directly or indirectly correlated to the process of unlearning.
Because unlearning provides space in our mind so that we can learn new things.
Trusting our intuition automatically tells us to unlearn things which are not working previously in our lives.

Human progress doesn’t come from the development of many more theories, it mostly comes from somebody applying or testing these theories and finds a solution.
Intuition is our key to test these unsubstantiated theories and find the long lasting results.
If everybody uses the power of intuition in their toolbox, the world would be a different place now.
Ask the power of intuition to the Xerox company that they failed to utilize it completely.
Xerox created personal computers 10 years before Apple.
Xerox created icon-based operating systems 15 years before Microsoft.
Xerox created an internet service 20 years before Netscape.
Yet Xerox bypassed all of these opportunities.
The real problem is Xerox read theories but couldn’t apply the intuition to test the real theories.

Any person who runs a marathon knows that finishing a marathon requires more than just running.
No matter how strong our body is, at some point during running our body wants to stop and take a rest. But the runner has trained his or her mind in such a way that he or she keeps running mentally.
His or her body becomes tired but still he or she runs because he or she has trained his or her willpower.
Our intuition is our willpower, more we use it, more it enhances the willpower.
If we stop running in the middle of the marathon, it’s due to our emotion.
Our emotions which come before anything else deplete our intuition and consequently diminishes our ability to control our actions.
Our intuition is our catalyst for the run to finish because we know we can finish it, we have trained so much for this run.
Our intuition tells us to stay focused on the run.
Intuition doesn’t come regularly, it comes when we have a habit of engaging with our serene thoughts.
We cannot force ourself to be more intuitive, it comes naturally when we honor it with practice.

Our intuition power also depends on our health status.
To do mental work we need a lot of glucose, a source of energy. We can not do a thinking job without a lot of glucose in the bloodstream.
The glucose itself does not enter into the brain but it changes into neurotransmitters. Neurotransmitters are chemicals which are used by our brain cells to send signals.
If we have a deficiency of neurotransmitters, we stop thinking, we stop our intuition, we deplete our willpower.

I have three kids, and one saturday, my wife told me to look after them and she left.
After she left I made sure that the entrance door is locked so that I wouldn’t lose track of them.
I discovered very quickly that if they were making noise, they were good, no problem. But after a few minutes everything became very quiet, then my intuition started to work and telling me something isn’t right.
I came around the kitchen and saw that two older ones were trying to cut the younger one’s hair with a sharp scissor.

Intuition works best when we store energy. Invitation of stillness is storing body energy.
We should spend time on quietness, observe things mentally, meditate, exercise, where our intuition works the best.
It is this simple as it is.
I don’t know how the microwave works, but I know when I put my sweet potato inside it, it will cook my sweet potato, and I’m using it every single day.

Mark Twain, the greatest American writer and the father of American literature has said that he never worked a single day in his life, everything has been done by his subconscious and intuition.
Nurture your intuition everybody.

Thank you for your time.
-Yam Timsina