Journaling What You Are Living For

"If you want to identify me, ask me...what am I living for, in detail, and ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for." - Thomas Morton

This quote really impacted me.  I was merrily reading it and hit that last part:  "...what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for.." Read it again, yourself.  I do not have a bucket list any more.. I am already in the bucket.  But, they say, that to keep one, helps one have direction in life and gives us something to focus on, to look forward to, and to give one the sense of purpose.  

It really helps to really look at our life and decide what it is we really want, what is attainable, what will make us better people.  I love to do NOT what I am supposed to do, but what, suddenly, comes on and I realize, "Hey, I always wanted to do that!"   I have not, though, let life lead me far.  I have taken charge of where I am headed, and I include detours, because life is like that.  I think it is important to look at what I desire and where it would get us.  Is it a physical thing, an intellectual thing, an emotional thing, or a spiritual thing.  Often we look at physical and emotional without considering the intelligence and spiritual balance of things.  It is a little bit goal-setting, a little bit doing adventurous things, a little bit outrageous things, and a whole lot about thinking today is not our last day. (If one is afraid of no tomorrow.)  Some choose to do things they have always been afraid of doing. 

In order to make a great choice of things to do, if we get the chance, is to really know what makes you happy.  It has nothing to do with what makes someone else's list.  Some would choose new foods they would like to try.  For some, if it attainable, they would like to travel to certain places.  These are people who just want to have fun.  But, beware, sometimes it is not at all what you thought and choose wisely because discontentedness can cause us to choose highly probabilities of disappointment in the end.  What makes us happy says very much about us...are we physical people, intellectual people, emotional people or spiritual people?  Because all things cannot be exactly as we wished they'd be, it is very good to have a plan A,B,C.  If you are one who has had great expectations, then felt let down, most times, then you need to consider each of the things on your list.  You cannot feel what you do not know.

When we were young, most of us circled and folded down pages in a Sears Catalogue:  Our wish list.  I remember my older daughter wishing for a diamond ring...she was 10.    My youngest son wished for an Alf doll.  He got it and kept it into adulthood, and probably has it yet.  We all need something to look forward to, of course, and those kinds of things change as ewe mature, and on into our Elderhood.  I no longer look forward to Christmas... to Thanksgiving, to New Years, to birthdays, to holidays.  People do not gather like they used to and I could wish but that does not even remotely become something that is realistic.  Everyone is too busy, too far, too something.  It seems like we never lose the need to wish for something we did not have, did not get, did not really want but want now.

While we are looking back and wishing things could have been different, things you think you should have gotten/had happen, things we were going to do and did not, things we wanted but did not have..etc., we miss new and exciting things we could do right now.  It is imperative that we stay interested in what is happening right now.    In Meet Joe Black, a Bahamian elder is lying in the hospital dying and she recognizes that Joe is the angel who has come for her, she tells him she is ready because she has gathering all the images in her head that she wanted to.  That is what we need to be doing, noticing the moments rather than spent daydreaming and wishing and mourning what was not, what we had not, etc.  

Live every day at its utmost.  Do not waste time and what you could not have, do, see.  Live every day as if there were not an end of the line.  Let moments of life surprise you, fill you with empowerment, bring you flowers you had not even known you wanted.  

My page is a painting of what I wished I had spent more time on - spirituality- and it is an attainable goal now.  I want to live in a way I attain more grace, dignity and a deepened spirituality.  Can you express a goal?  Do you know what area in your life is left wanting?  Do you find joy and passion and adventure and fulfillment in something?  Express that.  You can, I believe in you!

©Carol Desjarlais 9.24.19