Your Perfect Life
THE LIFE OF YOUR DREAMS
I know that sounds harsh. I, myself, was a person who would ask, “do you think I like being depressed?” Who would? Well, a lot of people. Because here’s the thing, if you want to be somewhere or have something, you will work to get there or obtain it. Here’s a quick check of your true wants and desires in life. This exercise will take about an hour or so and may just enlighten you to some fallacies you’ve long held about yourself.
This comes in three parts.
Part one: Take about twenty to twenty-five minutes and, in your mind, sculpt your perfect life. Make it as detailed as possible. It has to be realistic, not some vacation fantasy. So, no sipping tropical drinks on the beaches of Bali while your perfect mate provides sex on demand. This is a life you would truly love to be living.
Where do you live? What is your normal routine? What does your domicile look like? What do you do for a living? Are you with a mate? If so, what do they look like? What do they do for a living? Is it the mate you are currently with? How do you spend your time in work and recreation? Do you work from home, in an office, or with your hands? How is your physical fitness? Do you exercise regularly? Do you meditate and/or pray? What things are important to you? What type of food do you enjoy? Do you cook or eat out? What kind of a car do you drive, or do you not drive? Give deep consideration as to the type of person you want to be, not necessarily who you are. That isn’t to say that if you’re completely happy with your current life you can’t put that down. However, I doubt you’d be engaging in this exercise if you were content with where you are and what you’re doing. If you need to write longer than the twenty-five minutes by all means do so.
Part two: For the next twenty to twenty-five minutes give careful consideration to what the average of your days have been over the past week of your working life. Again, you don’t compare things to your vacation or having the flu. This would be the last typical week that you spent in your normal life. What do you do for a living? What time do you get up in the morning? What’s the first thing you do? Do you pray or meditate? Do you exercise? What is your routine? Do you rush home from work every day to a person you love, or one you can no longer stand? Are you alone, if so, are you lonely or content with that? Do you enjoy family and friends in your free time? Do you read or opt to watch reruns of sitcoms you’ve seen a thousand times? To you do the things you enjoy or daydream about them between commercials?
Part three: Here is the tough part. Compare part one with part two. You see, if you really want part one, then part two will reflect you at least working toward part one. The ideas in part one are optimum goals for you. Your ideal life. It is a fortunate few who have these two parts match up. Part two is a reflection of who you really want to be, and how you really want to live. If, in part one, you’ve stated that you want to live in a beach house on the shore and be physically fit yet in part two you state that you wake up fifteen minutes before you leave for a job you hate and rush home to a mate you can’t stand to watch reruns of some ridiculous sitcom, then that, my friend, is where you want to be.
There are many reasons why people live lives of mediocrity when they could be living the life of their dreams. Sometimes life events get in the way. Perhaps you married too young, had children you could ill afford and were ill prepared to care for. It could be you lack education or training. However, the real reason most people don’t break out of their mediocre lives is fear. Fear of taking risk. Fear of failing. Fear of disappointing people. Fear of simply putting yourself out there. This will be a topic for future blogs. For now, listen to yourself talk. When you’re rushing home to that sitcom or convincing yourself that it’s ok to be lazy and lethargic because “I worked all day in a job I hate to take care of a person I no longer love. I deserve to come home drink some beers eat some pizza smoke some pot and veg out in front of the tv.” The only person who is being hurt by this is you. And life is passing you by. Time doesn’t give a flying fuck what you do with it. You can use all the excuses you want in wasting it.
I’ll leave you with this thought from Earl Nightingale: “Successful people form the habit of doing what failures don’t like to do. They like the results they get by doing what they don’t necessarily enjoy.” So, get off your ass, and start living a life beyond your wildest dreams.