What Kind of Life Do I Want?
A Question For All Times
We grow up dreaming of our future ... of slaying dragons, rescuing princes from bandits or fair maidens in distress. And in our dreams, we are handsomely rewarded with fame, riches, wisdom and all the treasures and pleasures of the world.
But somewhere along the way .. things change. We put our dreams in a drawer, tuck away the ideas of who we want to become ...
Until we wake up one day, look around us ... and realize that our life is no where near what we imagined, hoped for or dreamed of.
A Beautiful Mess
For many of us, our life has become a beautiful mess. Full of the odds and ends we have picked up along the way ... friends who aren't really friends at all ... pieces of furniture we used to like ... racks of CDs and DVDs that used to delight us but now remind of of who we have become instead of who we wanted to be like.
Maybe things aren't so bad, we think to ourselves ... we are paying the bills, we sleep tucked up warm at night ... we can splurge on the weekends a bit.
But the nagging questions remain ...
How did our life become this thing we don't recognize?
Isn't there more to life and it is worth changing everything to go chasing a dream that may not exist?
... and if you surface enough between fixing the washer and taking the kids to after school practice ... they can keep creeping in.
Have I become someone I don't recognize?
Is it me or my life that no longer fits?
Frog Ponds & Mental Pictures
The only way to answer that .. is to think of a frog in a pond. If you have outgrown your life ... your pond, then you will feel the need for more space, more air, more life and passion to come flooding into your life. Life needs to get juicy again ...
If you feel like you are a pale imitation of your former self ... you may have settled, paid too much for the whistle, as Ben Franklin would say.
But if your life seems unrecognizable .. if you feel lost within it ... or feel like you are becoming invisible ... it is time to take a quick mental picture. Look around at your life during a quiet moment, a sunny afternoon when nothing special is going on. No peaks and valleys of emotion here ... but a reality check of a mental snapshot of your life as it really is. Now mentally place that snapshot in front of yourself when you were growing up.
What is your reaction?
Happiness or regret? Delight or dismay?
In The Store of Life
Now think about walking through the Store of Life, and seeing on the shelf boxes with pictures of lives. Put your snapshot on the front of one of those boxes. Would you have picked it up now and say ....
Wow!! Yeap! That's the life I want!
If the answer is "no!", "Heck Noh!" or anything similar ... you might want to rethink your life and re-evaluate the life goal you have chosen.
Life often turns out differently than we planned ... but the twists and turns are supposed to make sense in hindsight and help us learn the life lessons we need on our way to fulfilling our life calling and purpose. Life is supposed to be better, not worse than we imagined.
It shouldn't take a mid- life crisis, a mental meltdown or a life spent living for the weekends to make us wake up to a life that needs changing. And that is when the real question begins with ...
What kind of life do I want?
The Next Step ...
If you want to find an answer, it starts with ...
Inspiring Quotes: Love Your Life
Inspiring Movies: Living Your Dreams
