What is one dream scenario that you have lost sight of?
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Yesterday I was crossing the street, waiting for a break in traffic. A small, beat-up truck passed me — the very kind of truck I used to drive — and I saw a man driving with his dog riding shotgun. Remembering my one most-amazing-and-wondrous dog who rode shotgun with me in my old truck, I felt a pang of sweet memory pass through my very core.
This particular dog went everywhere with me, so it was a common sight to see the two of us toodling around the county with the windows rolled down while singing along to some tune on a cassette tape. The dog actually had a better singing voice than I did, but she was no critic. Happy were we who got to go everywhere together.
When I saw this man and his happy pup in that truck, a dart of awareness passed through me. It was one of those movie-montage moments where I could view time on film. I could see me and my furry friend driving here and there in the succession of broken-down trucks that I had the misfortune of owning.
Yesterday as I watched the truck go jouncing down the road, I realized that one of my essential criteria for living a happy life had somehow slipped through the cracks of my ever-shifting paradigms. At one time in my life, I would not even consider a job opportunity unless my dog could accompany me throughout the work day. I turned down jobs in Alaska, California, Canada . . .. If I couldn’t bring my faithful sidekick, I knew that the job wasn’t the right one for me. As chosen priorities lead to reality, I ended up opting to live in a wall tent on 572,000 acres in a wilderness area. It was a great situation where my boss did not care in the least if my dog tagged along.
The situation had all the potentiality of being lonely, but I never thought of it that way. I was living in the midst of all of this incredible grandeur and my dog was right there by my side. She was my true-blue, thick-and-thin companion in the middle of all that vast quiet. She would run ahead of me on the trail and defy any bear, cougar, coyote, or free-range horse to come anywhere near us. My time within all of that beauty there was such a rare opportunity, I appreciated every single day that passed.
All of this was bound to change. And it did. During my years there, this ace #1 dog-of-a-lifetime passed on to Dog Heaven and other canine companions joined me. Ultimately, a new job opportunity came up and I couldn’t pass it up. The only problem? I couldn’t bring my new dog to work with me. The schedule was pretty good and the two of us were still able to get out and roam the trails on our 3-day weekends . . . but there was a shift. And it was bigger than me not being able to bring my dog to work. It was me compromising on what was important to me.
Looking back, I can see that “Bringing My Dog to Work” served as a bullet point on my Higher Self’s mission statement.
The years have passed. That job led to another dog-restricted job. Then I returned to school, and we all know how major universities feel about dogs sitting outside classrooms waiting for their human. Not a good idea. The mornings were full of classroom time and the afternoons were taken up by various half-ass jobs that supported me through school.
Outdoor-dog time grew to be more limited for me and free-range hikes turned into long evening strolls through the neighborhood. Life had changed, as had I. It didn’t occur to me at the time that I was focused on Ahead instead of looking at Right Now.
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All of these compromises. With me feeling so buried by my decisions concerning education and future employment, the changes were all taking on priority status without me realizing that I was granting permission, one way or another, to something that was counter-intuitive to my internal mission statement. I don’t rightly know how it all happened. I don’t know when a yes became a no and a no became a yes. Life changed when I consciously reversed the two and said it was all for a Better Future.
That’s the problem with giving in and giving up . . . you don’t realize that it has all happened until it feels like it’s too late to do anything about it anymore. But that’s just it . . . it’s not too late. Not at all. All sorts of good decisions are before me. All I have to do is choose.
Life is a lively event. So many baby steps lead to where we are today. Today, I want to honor my preferences. Back up a little bit and review my Mission Statement. Do a little editing maybe and re-commit to what is still important. Invite my dream to ride shotgun with me again, roll down the windows, and belt out a tune.
How about you?
- What’s riding shotgun on your Mission Statement? On your personal manifesto?
- What’s one dream scenario that you have lost sight of?
- Is it still alive inside you?
- Are you ready to take some baby steps to renew it in your life?
We sometimes feel so bogged down by the progression of changes that have taken place in life that it can feel like it is impossible to reinstate one of our long-ago dreams.
Today might be the day that you sit down and ask what is important to you.
- Commit it all to paper.
- Keep the items approachable by using simple language. Dreams, written in your own language, will mean more to you than if they are crafted using lofty words and expressions.
- Put your manifesto where you can see it easily and daily. Maybe it is your bathroom mirror or it is the wall by your desk or on a kitchen cupboard. The important thing is that you make it visible.
- Read your manifesto aloud. It might feel weird the first few times you do this, but it is as important that you hear the words as it is seeing the words.
- When making decisions, think about what is important to you. Let your Higher Self guide you.
- Dreams are meant to be followed. Follow them. They know the way.
Author bio: Kennedy Farr’s passion for writing caught light at the age of four when she first learned how to spell her name at a yellow kitchen table on a sheet of lined tablet paper. Kennedy is a daily writer and blogger, a lifelong learner, and a true believer that something wonderful is happening right now in this very moment. Kennedy lives high on the mountainside of an emerald-green island in the Pacific Northwest.
Website: https://theunseenwordsproject.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/theunseenwords
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/The-Unseen-Words-Project-1095815913825818/
In this age of mindfulness, abundance, and positive thinking, we can’t help but read and hear a lot about the importance of thinking positive thoughts. We read the anecdotes and the stories from those whose lives have been richly blessed by the positive effects of mindful manifesting, and we wonder if the same would work in our lives. Does positive thinking work? I believe so. Actually, I think so — with the most positive thoughts I that can create and think. And after all, the alternative — negative thinking — isn’t all that great of an alternative.
Can you remember that first time you were actually pedaling, steering, and balancing a bicycle all by yourself?
I couldn’t help but think back to my old friend Donnalyn who stopped by my house one day to see me when I wasn’t home. She left an envelope on my front porch, and in the envelope was $50 cash with a note saying, “I’ve been where you are. After my divorce, I didn’t think I was going to be able to figure it all out. You are going to make it.”
Are you a procrastinator? A big one or a little one? Or a kind of It-Depends one? This is a fantastic TED talk on the topic that is near and dear to all of us. No matter who you are — you are a procrastinator concerning something. Tim Urban really nails it when he breaks procrastination down into its simplest parts. I have watched this talk several times — some of those times being when I was procrastinating about something else.
Numbers.
There is simply so much cool stuff going on there. Quantity vs. quality. Count vs. noncount. We think of a life — a count noun — and we count the number of lives on the planet. But when we think of our our own life? We think “in terms of wholes that can’t be cut up into pieces.” It’s one whole life. It’s my life! And like grass, rice, and money . . . we don’t actually cut our own life up into pieces . . . even when we think in terms of annual events such as birthdays and anniversaries. It’s all one big whole that we truly prefer not to relegate to the Noun Category of Count. We want to make it count in the ways that are important . . . not in some grammatical or statistical way.
My advice to self: Just live and give it your best in the moment. You’ve got this. While I appreciate the concepts of mindfulness and how important it is to be aware and to be positive, there is more. There is life as a noncount noun. It’s okay to count the little things as long as I remember the bigger picture. And sometimes it is so hard to keep sight of this enormous, huge, ginormous Universe of which I am but a tiny speck.
You’re at a party and you really don’t know anyone there. You came because someone from your professional networking group invited you. He tells you that it will be a great way to meet new people. You are doing your best to “mingle” and make polite conversation. On the inside you feel awkward and out of place and are wondering when you can make a move for the nearest exit.
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