Sunday Story...Your Life

“You are the star in the movie called Your Life. Why are you pretending it’s just a bit part?”¬¬--Unknown

You are living the life you have created. Whether or not you have created it on purpose. All too often our life ended up looking a certain way because we did what was expected of us, what we should do, and what the world had us pigeon-holed to do or be. You were supposed to go to college (and in some cases a particular one), get married (to a certain type), have children (a number), pursue a certain career (one acceptable to your family). Maybe you did all of those things. Maybe you did them well, and did them successfully. That was the life you created. What life would you have created if you were free from all those should-dos? You might have created the exact life you created. Then again, you might have created something entirely different.

I would invite you to look back over your life and shuck the shoulds. I am not extolling you to throw everything in your life away. I am inviting to step powerfully into the fact that you are living the exact life you have designed for yourself. And I am also inviting you to step powerfully into the exact life you want to lead.

So go ahead and look back. Look back with eyes of gratitude and hope and joy. Your life today is the aggregation of all those actions you took (and the ones you didn’t), all the expectations you accepted, all the shoulds, all the supposed-tos. You did it all to the extent and ability you could. So many things have gone right; so many things have been fun and good. Celebrate the victories, large and small.

Out of this joyous moment take a long look forward. Way, way down the road. Look at the end game, that moment none of us really wants to face, but the one we all know is coming. When the curtain falls and you gaze back over the life you lived, will the life you did create be the one you intended to create, the one you wanted to leave behind for the inspection of the ages? Or will it be the life you created out of other people’s expectations and desires? Or, and perhaps worse yet, will it be a life cobbled together by accident, by happenstance and kismet, a life that just happened like a piece of flotsam washed up on some unintentional shore?

When I think about that moment I know I do not want my life to have been determined by a pinball-like caroming of events. I want my life to look like I had some idea of what I wanted to do, some idea of what I might accomplish, some idea of intention and attention. Maybe you aren’t that way. Maybe you live in a different paradigm than I do. And that is all well and good.

You get to have the life you want to create whether by intention and on purpose or by accident. It is, after all, your life. If you want to create a life that might inspire or have purpose and meaning, you can do that. There are things to be done and done now, as in the right now.

For right now, though, let’s just savor the life we are living. After all it is the only one you are going to get on this go around. The next 2 weeks will explore the “what’s next and what’s possible” part of the equation.

From me to you, with gratitude,

Namaste

John Mariotti
www.crossfit-odyssey.com
www.martialartsnevada.com
www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com