Don't Let Life Pass You By

You yearn to be in control. But life simply isn’t designed that way. It’s unpredictable in ways even the most prepared, cautious and intelligent among us cannot begin to understand.

From a very young age we learn to want a certain outcome. We want to be rich, whatever your definition of that may be. We want to have status, fame, security, high paying jobs, perfect health, a loving spouse, nice car, confidence, happiness and so forth.

Our interpretations of what that is are molded by the media and corporations using every psychological strategy in their toolbox to get us to buy something. No matter how sound the advice and input from your inner circle may be, it’s no match for the overwhelming onslaught.

So when things don’t shake out to look like the things you’ve dreamt of, you begin to fight. The voice in your head begins to evaluate everyone around you. What kind of watch is he wearing? What about her shoes? Did you see their house in the Facebook post? He works at THAT company – wow!? They make how much money? Am I fat? Is my hair thinning? They just bought THAT new car?!

We look outward assuming happiness is out there somewhere. We want to control everything and often ignore opportunities, favor and our own good fortune because it doesn’t match that which is desired. 

You hear a lot about gratitude and I will add to the beating drum here by asking you to take stock of how lucky you are and be grateful. Let go of needing to be in control and simply be. Choose to be happy, grateful and excited about life. Choose to be excited for the success of others and grateful for the success of your own.

The last thing you want to do is live a remarkably wealthy, fulfilled, loving and accomplished life only to end up missing it all because you weren’t paying attention, instead looking outward and wondering “why not me?”