Does “doing what you must” keep you from “doing what you dream”?
by Wendy Keller
Watching humans from space, it might seem we are not all that different from ants. Endlessly finding food and bringing it back to the nest; communicating with one another briefly; carrying burdens that are far heavier than we are.
While there are certainly people who never seem take on responsibility for their own lives, I observe there are far more who take on everything and then, life piles on something else. Whether it’s a real life tragedy or just the car needing new tires and there being a leak in the roof, the burdens you carry may seem incredibly heavy.
How do you have time to even dare to hope for relief? It can’t all begin when we get to retirement. And in this economy, many people foresee a retirement postponed or less abundant anyway. If you’ve been working for a few years or a few decades, you might have noticed that each day your life’s dreams seem to get a little bit further away. The image in my mind is of a drowning person who sees a log just a few strokes away but as you move toward it, it seems to stay the same distance from you.
How do we STOP the overwhelm and START living a life more in alignment with our heart’s almost-forgotten true desires?
Well, the obvious answer is that it isn’t going to happen by doing more of the same. While you’re alive, you’ll never get to the permanent bottom of needing to eat, sleep, clean, fix, go, give, do…and if you’re like me, you’ll never even get to the bottom of your email inbox for more than a few minutes before it starts flooding again.
So the solution isn’t working harder or faster. It’s working smarter.
The Smart You inside knows that this is crazy. Your job is to figure out what the Smart You knows you should do for yourself, with yourself, with your time and energy, to begin to slowly turn your life in the direction you prefer. Here are some points to ponder, things your Smart You might be saying if you listen to that voice instead of the one that keeps screaming “Hurry up!”. It might say…
“Hey! Look at this! You really need to stop hurting your body in this way and live a healthier lifestyle!”
“This is causing you pain. Lots of it. Let’s stop that now.” And then actually, minute by minute, second by second if necessary, reminding yourself that the outcome of your behavior in this instant is the quality of your life in the future.
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