Today I invite you to make a sort of inventory of your life. I am making mine, as well. Start thinking back as many years as you can recall. See yourself as a child and try to remember what you liked to do then and what you were dreaming of doing later, when you grew up. Did you like to read, write, play soccer, or just watch TV?
Envision yourself as you were, experience your enthusiasm and excitement while thinking of becoming a doctor, a fireman, a police officer, the president! Continue on memory lane and picture yourself as a teenager. What had happened to your childhood dreams? How many were still there? Hardly any? At this stage of your life you might have even been devoid of dreams, indifferent to everything that surrounded you, except your friends. On the other hand, you might have already started checking your deep desires and tried out some skills you felt you might have: math, art, interior design, mechanics and so on.
Then, time came for you to actually make a choice. College was waiting for you to decide, for you to “really” make up your mind about what you wanted to do with your life. So, with no more possibility to postpone or linger, you went on to study journalism, chemical engineering, foreign languages, dentistry or... Now, here you are, the person of today! You have a steady job, you are an active and productive member of society, you contribute to the progress of mankind — in your own way and with your own means.
If you look at yourself in a virtual “satisfaction mirror,” what do you see? Do you detect a fulfilled human being? Or a dissatisfied one? Do you perceive yourself as successful at what you are doing, or do you see a mediocre person who carries on, day after day, sustained only by habit? Do you experience, every now and then, a sensation of boredom, a feeling that things could be a bit different, a bit more exciting, that you have to offer more than you actually do, that you are not expressing your “full” self? And if this is the case, ask yourself why you let it happen and if there is something you can do about it.
Make a final assessment of your professional life, and be totally honest. No one will know the conclusion you might come up with. No one will judge either you or what you have and have not done.
But this is not all. Now, or maybe later (but do it, please!), follow the same procedure as far as your feelings are concerned. Try to recall, beside the career you wished to pursue, what kind of a person were you planning to be. Endeavor to remember if you wished to do good on this Earth, to be helpful to others, to be selfless and caring for those in need, maybe to raise a family, be a loyal partner and dedicated parent, to also be a faithful friend and a reliable individual. All this examined, how do you see yourself? “What” have you become?
This type of “exercise” is neither easy nor pleasant, I know. While retracing the past, it is almost certain that you will stumble onto mistakes you made, you might possibly have to face regrets for actions you did or neglected to do, see images of people you might have hurt, wronged or ignored. Now that you have everything clearly exposed in front of your eyes, you may be a little upset but it’s worth it, because all this helps you to know yourself better, to have an improved vision of your present situation. Once you “see’ more clearly, you also “understand” more about yourself. And here comes the good news, once again! As you are still alive, you still have time to fix what needs to be fixed, to improve what needs to be improved, to create a better life for yourself and for your dear ones.
E-mail: viverbene@hotmail.com
Blog: recreateyourlifetoday.blogspot.com
Creative Thinking: ‘What’ have you become?
