How do you react when you hear that question? Do you stop, look within, and think about who you want to be, and what you want out of life?

Or do you get defensive, expecting another self-proclaimed expert to tell you how to fix your life?

My life’s [...]]]>

How do you react when you hear that question?
Do you stop, look within, and think about who you want to be, and what you want out of life?

Or do you get defensive, expecting another self-proclaimed expert to tell you how to fix your life?

My life’s not perfect.

I’d like to find/strengthen, or develop new abilities, and do things that seem out of reach.
I want to experience new possibilities in myself, so the world remains new and fresh around me.

There are endless books and methods of personal development that tell us what to become, and how to move along a path from where we are to where we want to be.

A few books are focused on giving us a new vision of life.
These books show us that who we are, what we’re capable of, and the way that we and the world live, is only one possibility among many.

Such books inspire us to rethink what is possible for ourselves, and the world.

I received a copy of a book like this recently, called A Life Worth Living, by Bill Giruzzi.

Typical for me, I try to get an overview of the book before I sit down to read it.
I look at the covers, the introduction, and the table of contents:

1. Work is a Cultural Phenomenon
2. It’s All Made Up
3. Building Blocks
4. Paradigm of Business
5. Is this It?
6. Someday the sun will go out
7. The Curtain, Please
8. The New Paradigm
9. Not of this World
10. Meet Your Narrator
11. The future
12. A New Mind, A New World
13. The Edge of Language
14. A Life Worth Living

It’s a small book.
And it doesn’t take long to read it.
But the issues that Bill raises, and the questions he asks us at the end of each chapter will stay with you long after you’ve turned the last page.

 
I Don’t Know How to Create
The world we face is a result of people not wanting enough

One of the topics that Bill focuses on is our belief that we don’t know how to shape our lives.
There’s this subtle conversation in the background of our minds humming along saying something like, “There must be something wrong with me. If there weren’t something wrong with me, I wouldn’t have this life. ”

We create our lives with the choices that we make.
But we’re often unhappy with the results, so we deny our ability to create.
Why do we deny our lives?

Sometimes it’s because we can’t predict the consequences of our choices, and we’re unhappy with the way we feel about the life we’ve chosen.

We can’t understand how we got to this point.
What’s wrong with us?
How do we fix it?

We often pretend that we live and choose, unbound by any of the influences around us.
But Bill explains that we live and choose within a paradigm.

Our time, our culture, our parents, our life experiences, and beliefs tell us what is possible and appropriate.
The paradigm tells us what the choices us, and forces us to choose between only them.

Whose thoughts do I think?
Whose feelings do I feel?
Are they truly mine, or have I just borrowed them from the world around me?

A paradigm is a structure that binds us and limits us as much as the shape and size of a room that we stand in.

 
Changing the Paradigm
We’ve settled for what the past tells us is possible and as a result, we continue to be stuck surviving in the world we’ve created.

Whenever you think that you are tired with life as it is, change from the viewpoint that “this is life” to “this is life within this design”

We pretend that there is only one way that the world can be.
We pretend that our beliefs are as solid as the ground beneath us, and the sun in the sky.
But nothing in our lives is permanent.

Bill encourages us to think about our own death, the death of our loved ones, and the end of the earth and sun.
We realize that we treat so many things as permanent and inevitable, even though they can change tomorrow.

We accept the rules and thoughts that everyone lives by, and we assume that we have to fix our problems within this paradigm.

But many of our problems are simply a consequence of the paradigm we live in.

There’s another way.
We can adopt a new paradigm, a new way of thinking, with different rules, different choices, and different results.

Bill says:
I wrote this book to instill in you a desire for discovery…It’s about regaining what has been lost to us – the experience of powerfully and fully participating in our lives.

But how do we find a new way, when we have so much negativity toward our current life?
Most people are dissatisfied with their jobs, letting their lives slip away in pain, always waiting for another time and place to find meaning and satisfaction.

Our pain gives rise to our negativity.
We deny and resist our life.

Our resistance is directed toward our current life and the paradigm that our life is built on.
But we can’t imagine anything outside of that paradigm, so any thoughts of a new life are faced with the same resistance.

 
Living in Two Worlds
When we want to change, we don’t deny our present life.
We don’t quit our jobs, or ignore the urgent demands of our current world.

But we begin to create another structure.
We build another paradigm which can allow us to live differently, and make different choices.

We want to develop a way of life where it’s natural to experience joy, and find meaning and satisfaction every day.

The great challenge is to be aware of both paradigms, and yet keep them separate.
We have to learn to think and feel in two worlds:

• The world we are in, which derives from the past.
• And the world we want to create, which will derive from our actions, derived from our thoughts.

We’re not talking of a purely intellectual awareness of the new world we want to build, and the new paradigm that structures it.
This new world has to be placed in our hearts, and shine with possibility and meaning.

Robert Fritz, in Creating, and other books, speaks of something similar.
When we want to create, we have to hold at once in our minds, both our current reality, as well as the future to be created.

Each must be clear and distinct.
And we must care deeply about what we’re trying to create.

The contrast between the two worlds gives birth to a powerful energy, a creative tension that drives us to find a way to bring that future to life.

Living Dreams I love imagination, passion, and possibility.

Weave them together with a sprinkling of hope. Dreams of a bright future will fill your heart and mind.

And dreams are the fuel that drives personal growth.

Do you think that you’re too old to dream? Many people assume that [...]]]>

Living Dreams
I love imagination, passion, and possibility.

Weave them together with a sprinkling of hope.
Dreams of a bright future will fill your heart and mind.

And dreams are the fuel that drives personal growth.

Do you think that you’re too old to dream?
Many people assume that only the young can dream.

Everyone has moments when they are filled with passionate dreams of the future.

For some of us those dreams flash and disappear, and are gone.

For others, the dreams are like the moon.
The dreams grow stronger, weaken, and then return.

Sometimes those dreams are sharp and alive.
They seem to surround us, and call to us.

At other times, those dreams are lost, buried, forgotten, or hidden.

Safety and Adventure
We have contradictory elements within us.

One side of us looks for the familiar.
It looks for familiar patterns among the world that greets our senses.

We want to connect today’s world to yesterday’s world.
We want to predict and control what happens to us.

This side of us makes us feel safe.

Another side of us swims in a sea of possibility.
We hunt for new patterns to taste, and explore.

We want to expand our world, and make it larger and larger.
This is the heart of all desire for freedom.

This side of us loves adventure.

It loves dreams, and lives on dreams.
This side of us makes us feel alive.

Perhaps the years you’ve lived have weighed you down, and clouded your dreams.

But are your dreams really gone?
No.

You can’t live without dreams, any more than you can live without air.
And, if you’re only safe, you can never be free.

Getting Stuck
When our pain and fears and habits stand in the way of our dreams, we get stuck.

Most of us are stuck in one or many areas of our lives.
We have goals or dreams, but we can’t seem to make any progress toward them.

When we can’t connect with those dreams, they become another reminder that we’re trapped, and the dreams lose their magic.

There are many ways to describe the feeling of being stuck:

• resistance
• trapped
• enslaved
• running in circles
• life on hold
• powerless
• lifeless
• small
• old

It’s easy, and natural to think of yourself and your life as something small.

Focus on the physical world that surrounds you.

You’ll see a world of objects.
Objects fill a small place in space, and have a limited, predictable use.

It’s easy to look at your body as just another object.

And you assume that your mind and heart and future must be similarly bound and limited.

This way of viewing the world comes from that part of us that wants the world to be small and predictable and safe.

But there’s a price to be paid, when the drive for safety buries the dreams of the explorer.

The life drains away from the familiar, until it seems old and small and empty of life.

One of the reasons why we get caught up in looking for only safety is that we come to feel overwhelmed by change.

It’s frightening when everything seems new.

You’re overwhelmed by the endless possibility and you don’t know what to do with it all.

You shut down, and look for a safe, familiar little corner to hide out in.

Safe Abundance
For most of us, our drive for safety has suppressed the drive for possibility.
We need to strike a balance between safety and possibility.

Let’s try to reconnect with the explorer who is hunting for possibility.

There’s another word that carries us to the world of possibility.
This word is popular in traditional religious works, as well as spiritual and new age works: abundance.

When we think of abundance, we think of rich possibility, but a possibility that is friendly and nurturing – a world of possibility that supports us fully in familiar ways, as well as offering pathways to new worlds.

Let’s look into abundance a little deeper.

Look at how the idea of abundance enriches specific areas of our lives.

These pathways and directions add some structure to the possibility, and make it much less overwhelming.

Let’s open ourselves to abundance in the following areas of our lives:

• abundant vision of self
• abundant learning, knowledge, and skills
• abundant attitudes
• abundant choices
• abundant action
• abundant relationships
• abundant tools, objects, and space
• abundant time, with abundant opportunity for growth & change

In later posts, we’ll explore each of these in detail.

MY DREAMS WALK BESIDE ME

Not a whisper, lost in the wind.

Or a shadow forgotten in the day’s sunlight.

Brighter than the light that greets dark eyes, sharper than any sword, endless as the space between stars.

MY [...]]]> (What’s an affirmation poem? See the beginning of Affirmation Poem: Endless River of Living Fire)

MY DREAMS WALK BESIDE ME

Not a whisper,
lost in the wind.

Or a shadow
forgotten in the day’s sunlight.

Brighter than the light that greets dark eyes,
sharper than any sword,
endless as the space between stars.

MY DREAMS WALK BESIDE ME

Do I see,
the impossible?

Thirst,
for what I cannot taste?

Teach,
what I don’t know?

And give,
what is not mine?

MY DREAMS WALK BESIDE ME

Do I just imagine a great lie?

Or does all possibility,
bright and dark,
flow through me?

Like fire,
that I have lived a thousand times
and will live again a thousand more.

MY DREAMS WALK BESIDE ME

I stumble through a dark place,
where dreams lie broken and starving upon the ground.

A graveyard,
where the bodies rest,
still dying,
while their shadows yet walk the earth.

MY DREAMS WALK BESIDE ME

Why do men pretend to be nothing,
even as they lay dying?

And why do shadows,
pretend to be men?

Their voices only a whisper,
their eyes dark and empty,
their hearts bitter and small.

MY DREAMS WALK BESIDE ME

I will walk once more,
as a man,
with air around me,
sweet as roses,
and strong as stone,

With water that takes every shape,
and lifts up a world to smile at the stars.

With dreams that will burst into life,
moment after moment.

My dreams are not outside me,
alien,
distant,
or thin like paper.

We are one.
We are here.
I am not alone.

MY DREAMS WALK BESIDE ME

We all are. It’s a side effect of the way our mind makes sense of the world. Let me explain.

Let’s say that your brain didn’t use your experience to help you understand the world. Your perception of every object, in every moment, would be brand new, [...]]]> Afraid to Change
Are you afraid to change?

We all are.
It’s a side effect of the way our mind makes sense of the world.
Let me explain.

Let’s say that your brain didn’t use your experience to help you understand the world.
Your perception of every object, in every moment, would be brand new, and you would spend all your time and attention trying to make sense of the simplest experiences.

That’s not how your mind works.
Instead, your mind finds patterns in your experience, and tries to fit every new situation into an existing pattern, so you know how to act with minimum conscious thought.
This leaves your conscious mind free to focus on the truly new situations that you experience.

How wonderful it would be if we could calmly, clearly, and consciously analyze our new experiences.
Unfortunately, our mind forces new things into old patterns, even when they don’t fit.
And when we encounter something that doesn’t fit at all into our established patterns, our first instinct is to protect ourselves, while we see if the situation is dangerous.

It’s the same when we think about changing how we live, or who we are.

You really want those changes.
And you find it pretty easy to imagine how wonderful such a life would be.

Still, part of you doesn’t recognize that new “you”. The imagined you doesn’t fit into your existing patterns of safe experience, and is treated with caution, until that new you can be experienced and proven safe.

But will you ever get to experience that new you?
If a new you might be dangerous, the safest alternative is to completely avoid becoming that new you.
And for many of us that danger and fear stops us from making real progress toward our dreams.

The Shared Experience of Joy and Pain
Pain shared is lessened, joy shared is increased Spider Robinson

There are two ways of experiencing the world.

• Isolated. You can experience the world, even people, as objects – unendingly separate and different than you
• Connected. Or, you can experience the world as a thick web, with endless connections between you and everything that seems outside of you

Most of us live with a combination of both points of view, although the isolated, object point of view usually dominates us.

It doesn’t seem to be a choice, though.
The way we live is strongly shaped by our personality, and many influences that surround us.

But you have a choice.
You can choose to move toward a life of greater connectedness, or greater isolation.

And that choice is not as simple as being sociable, or moving away from people. You can be highly sociable with people in a superficial way, so that you remain isolated within.

Do you experience joy and pain in isolation? Are your joys and suffering something that exists only within you?

As the above quote suggests, joy and suffering are different when shared.

Suffering doesn’t disappear by sharing it, by expressing it to those that your heart truly connects with.
But the pain is different, weaker, more bearable.

Joy, on the other hand, is not weakened by sharing it with those who you have real connections to.
It grows, not only because others experience joy, but the joy in your own heart is different.

Stories of Joy and Pain
We have many experiences of joy and pain in our lives.

If someone asks you to tell the story of your life, will you tell them a soap opera of every pain and pleasure and joy, regardless of meaning?

A good story has meaning.
And in our lives, there are moments of pain and joy that have great meaning for us.

You remember the powerful pain and joy that you have experienced.
But only some of those intense moments have led to a greater you.

You may still be wounded and trapped by the emotional pain of some of those moments. They may be little more for you than uncomfortable baggage that you carry around.
Then, there are other moments of pain that you faced, and through the challenge of the situation, you grew.

Some of your experiences of joy were only momentary pleasures, and you may look back on them with longing, finding the past more pleasant than the present.
Or, your joy may come from the feeling of seeing something great and wonderful. It may have been a personal achievement, or a touch of something extraordinary.

Did those joys lead you to rededicate yourself to the values and actions which gave rise to them?

With that rededication, you grew, and became someone more capable of bringing such joy into your life, and the lives of your friends and family.

This joy and pain in our lives that challenged us to grow, brought us into the future. This is the joy and pain that is truly, personally meaningful.

To grow from such powerful experiences is difficult, for as we’ve said, we’re afraid to change

Were you all alone in those challenging moments?
Did you share these moments of challenge with the right friends, and become energized by their support? Did their help enable you to make those moments meaningful?

Safety in Numbers
Year after year, we make plans to find and live our dreams.
To get there, we must pass through changes that frighten us.

When you feel that you are not alone, you feel stronger.
Challenges that would frighten you, seem small with the support of others.

We can plan alone, and try to walk alone, and seek no help to achieve our dreams.
Or, we can find the right friends, mentors, and a mastermind group to support us, as we do the challenging work of becoming the person of our dreams.

Marianne Williamson, in A Return to Love writes:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our [...]]]> Have You Ever Wanted to Be Powerful?
Have you every wanted to be powerful beyond measure?
Or, are you afraid of being too powerful, and abusing that power?
Or, do you simply feel unworthy of being powerful?

Marianne Williamson, in A Return to Love writes:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of G-d. Your playing small does not serve the world…We are all meant to shine as children do.

What are we looking for when we search for power?

Is it the ability to get others to do what we want?
Yeah. That sounds right.

Varieties of Power
Let’s identify some of the ways that people exercise power/influence over others:

1. Coercion. I force you to do what I want. There are a few varieties of this:
   • Physical force: Do this or I’ll hurt you
   • Social, Political, or Religious Authority: Do this or I’ll punish you; Do this or society will collapse; Do this or society will reject you;
   • Self-defense: Do this to prevent some future danger
2. Exchange. You agree to do what I want in exchange for a promise of money, love, friendship, sex, honor, power, health, knowledge, spiritual growth
3. Leadership. I act according to principle and set an example. You are inspired, and wish to follow me, and copy what I’ve done. (And…maybe honor me a bit on the side)

Do you imagine acting with such power that you can force others to do what you want?

Do you imagine having so much wealth, etc that you can give others what they need so they will listen to you?

Do you imagine being such an extraordinary person that others will want to listen to you?

We readily imagine power as doing, having, or being. But all of these are focused on what others will do for us.

It’s no wonder that having this sort of power results in arrogance, corruption, and abuse of power. We started out pursuing this power to get people to do what we want them to do.

Oh, I may have great reasons why my thoughts and beliefs should be followed. My ideas might even result in a better world for everyone.

But if I’m really honest with myself, what I want is for people to do what I say.
The details are ultimately unimportant.

Leaders Who Don’t Want Power
In Plato’s Republic, he suggests that the only kind of leaders that we should seek are the ones who don’t want to rule. Men and women who aren’t desperately seeking power and attention will recognize the difficulties in serving a diverse society. Such people will try to avoid positions of leadership.

We want leaders who act according to principle, and inspire people to follow them. This is the third flavor of power detailed above. But in addition, these leaders must be people who don’t need to be justified through others following them and showering them with attention.

Inner Leadership
We love to pretend that our inner lives are whole and balanced, and that we’re moving steadily in the direction of our most important dreams.

Well. It just isn’t that way.

We’re full of contradictions, with a multitude of aspects with different desires and goals.
Sounds like society, right?

Let’s say that the “me” of the moment has a great idea, a great dream for how my life should be. He thinks “I need to get everyone (all the little “me’s”) to follow.” He makes great plans how it’ll happen. He’s going to force the other parts through willpower, or offer rewards, or just be so right, that the other parts can’t help but follow along.

It’s politics all over again. The inner voice that is running for office is primarily interested in feeling good, feeling justified, feeling strong.

If I want to remake my inner world, I’d better recognize that it’s a thankless job. My dozens of competing little me’s won’t instantly stand up to worship me. Instead, the parts of me that can should focus on my deepest dreams, the ones that make my heart sing. We’ll focus on the inner greatness of those dreams and feel their truth, because they’re wonderful, not to convince anyone else on the inside, or the outside.

Paradoxically, following my own dreams, without arrogance, will change the world within me, and the world outside of me, as well.

For as long as I can remember I’ve wanted to be a hero. I’ve loved myths, legends, science fiction, and comic books my whole life.

Sounds childish, right? It’s easy to psychoanalyze a love of heroes, and dismiss it as a childish or neurotic desire to escape from reality.

What would it be like to live in a perfect world?

Jennifer, alias TruthDancer, recently tagged her readers here, and asked us to write about our vision of a perfect world. A small excerpt from her post follows:

…We need a new vision. As a world family, we need to hold in [...]]]> Let’s Dream Together

What would it be like to live in a perfect world?

Jennifer, alias TruthDancer, recently tagged her readers here, and asked us to write about our vision of a perfect world. A small excerpt from her post follows:

…We need a new vision. As a world family, we need to hold in our hearts the possibility of what could be our perfect world…We need to believe a world of compassion and care is a real possibility…I invite you to blog about your vision of what is possible. If it feels comfortable for you, create a post describing how you would envision the world if it could be healed in its most perfect state. Take a minute to create an image in your mind, and share with your readers, what a healthy world would look like. And then tag all your readers with a similar tag! …

I love Jennifer’s post. It has so much thought and hope in it!
We will make this a dramatically better world when we let ourselves dream great dreams and take action to bring them to life.

Look at the rest of my post, and if you’d like, join us in writing about what’s possible.

Perfect Fantasy?

What would my perfect world look like?

The selfish little boy in me might see a world where all pleasures are mine. I would be able do anything that I wanted. No one would have to work, or struggle. We would be forever young and beautiful.

When many people think of a perfect world, what they want is a perfect fantasy world like I’ve described.

And they want a world that someone else made perfect, and gave to them as a present.

That’s not the sort of world that we ache for.
We are dreamers, creators, builders and artists. We are here to remake the world, not simply to enjoy it forever like a clever video game.

Artists, not Critics

It’s easy to see and criticize what’s wrong in the world outside of us (though we might disagree on some of the details).
It’s harder for me to face and see clearly the darkness and violence within me, and how I contribute to the chaos around me.

And it’s harder still to see the wonder that lies hidden in the possible, like a fountain that can burst forth and heal us all. It’s time for each of us to make a choice.

Maybe it’s more accurate to say that it’s time for each of us to make different choices. We’re always making choices whether we’re aware of them or not.

Will I choose to face my own darkness instead of becoming obsessed with only the darkness around me?

Will we give up our full-time jobs as critics, and become full-time creators?

Not Quite Perfect

When I think of something perfect, I think of something finished.
In this sort of perfect world, there’s no room for improvement.

Other people might imagine a perfect world where each person thought and felt the same way, like a great swarm of mindless ants covering the earth. Having religious, spiritual, or political beliefs in common, and common values ought to be far different than denying the extraordinary variety found in the hearts and minds of men and women.

I don’t want to live in these perfect worlds.

A Great World, Not a Perfect One

Some mythologies and religious traditions speak of an after-death paradise as a place of pleasure and a forgetting of the challenges of the world.

Sometimes we grow so tired with our struggles in this world. We find ourselves weighed down with the pain and disappointment that we experience and see all around us. In the face of this, we can understand why someone might dream of the absence of pain and struggle, and look for a world full of endless pleasure.

Personally, I believe in a life after life. But whatever the nature of that other world, the present world should be a world of challenge and creation.

I imagine a world where everything around me is beautiful and wonderous, and yet just beginning.
I imagine a world where I’m always growing and learning and creating.

My vision of our new world sees a great world, not a perfect one.

Vision Revealed

What else do I see in our great, new world?

I see children, adults, and the elderly living every day with an extraordinary sense of wonder.

I see no hunger for food, but a hunger to find, celebrate, and apply each person’s unique gifts.

I see people everywhere tired of living mechanical lives, and casting aside those dull, tired lives for lives of passion and beauty and hope.

I see people letting go of stories of emptiness, and telling great stories of abundance.

I see a hunger for inner freedom that gives people the courage to question themselves and others.

I see people leaving their tiny, weak cocoons, and seeing how large and how powerful each person really is.

I see people looking at each others’ eyes, and being awed and attracted by the beauty within.

I see guardians and gardeners surrounded everywhere by living things.

I see us living and playing in the sea of energy that surrounds us.

I see a love of healing.

I see myself shining in that world, although I can hardly believe it is me.

And I see you there with a beautiful smile, bursting with energy.

What do you see?

It seems like I’m always waiting.

Waiting for tomorrow, next week, next year. Waiting for the perfect moment to do what my heart aches to do. Waiting to be the person that I want to be. Waiting to be given the power, to find the power, or to acquire the means to act effortlessly [...]]]> Waiting

It seems like I’m always waiting.

Waiting for tomorrow, next week, next year.
Waiting for the perfect moment to do what my heart aches to do.
Waiting to be the person that I want to be.
Waiting to be given the power, to find the power, or to acquire the means to act effortlessly – without conflict, struggle, tension, questions.

I want it all to be effortless and easy.
I almost want to sleep through that perfect moment.

The Future

Sometimes I’m too focused on the future.
But the power of the future is real.

The promise of the future is wonderful, and extraordinary.
The possibility of building an incredible world calls to us:

• suffering into joy
• slavery into freedom
• war into peace
• ignorance into wisdom
• hatred into love
• mediocrity into greatness

Children

There is nothing in this world that reminds me more of possibility, than looking into the faces of children.
Children have two special gifts

• the gift of the future: to see the possibility that the future holds
• the gift of wonder: to see the possibility that is here, right now, in the present moment

Children are not yet burdened with the inner pain of giving up, of accepting all of the “can’t”s that surround them, of trading their unique gifts for security and a cubicle.

Children radiate possibility and potential. Even a tired, jaded adult finds it easy to let the bright smile of a child wake him from his dark moments.

Look for that child in you who knows that the world is full of miracles, now and tomorrow. If she seems forgotten, don’t despair.
She’s not gone, only waiting to return.

Escaping to Yesterday, Today, or Tomorrow
It’s often assumed that our past, our yesterday is just something to get over.
We discard yesterday as dead and gone.
And, we often speak of the baggage we carry from our pasts.

While one person relates to his past, present, or future as a burden, another looks at the past, present, or future as the only refuge of possibility within his life.

• Do you feel that some part of your past was the best part of your life, while today and tomorrow seem empty?
• Do you glory in pleasures of the moment, while nothing else seems real?
• Or, do you wait for the possibilities of the future, a future that rarely comes to those who just wait?

Weaving together Yesterday, Today, or Tomorrow
What if we could learn to see the possibility in past, present, and future?
Not like a fantasy, where we hide in one of the three and pretend everything is all right.
Instead, what if we could see how the possibility of each can enrich our life now, and empower us to act today?

We can look at our lives as a great, unfinished story. The past with its triumphs and troubles can be seen as a necessary part of the story that brought us to this moment.
The lessons we learned, the unique perspective that we gained on life through our past is a gift, if we only learn how to see it, and use it.

Let’s look at the past like this for a moment.
Ask yourself: What have I learned from the past that I can use to live, right now?

Only you can answer that question.

Each of us, like a story, has themes that form the fabric of our lives. For now, let’s focus on the positive themes in our lives, including the positive ways that we’ve overcome challenges.

(For me personally, some of my key themes are possibility, imagination, words, dreams, and structure/systems. My challenges and my gifts lie around the marriage of imagination and possibility with appropriate structure and systems.)

And how can my hopes and plans for the future enrich my present?
Make a choice.

You can choose to see the future as a place always out of reach.
Or, you can choose to see the future as the end of the path that I’m starting to walk today.
The power of the future flows along that path, calls to me, and empowers me to take action now.

Telling your story
I love telling stories to my children.

Have you ever told a story to anyone?

To tell a good story, you have to care about the characters and what happens to them. The story has to have meaning for the teller and the listeners.

To bind your past, present, and future together into a powerful story, you have to care deeply about each part of your life. You have to see meaning and purpose in being here in the world. (Granted that it’s often a challenge to care about our lives without getting lost in the difficulties that we’ve faced.)

It’s up to each of us to tell our own story.
And that story is ours, and yet, not ours.

My story is interwoven with the stories of others. If I live and try to tell my story without caring about others’ lives and stories, then ultimately my story is empty. If I care deeply about the lives of others, then their greatness is also mine.

For some of us who have been hurt, or who are naturally shy, it’s a great challenge to tell the parts of our story where we rise high, together with others.

But we will tell that story.