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DESCRIBE IT OR DESIGN IT
Wednesday July 11, 2018
Simple enough term: defining my future.
Why would I do that? Because I don’t want to live life ‘on accident’, I’d rather be ‘on purpose’.
So, more than define and describe my future, I think my role has to be to design it.
This item has been on my ‘to do list’ for way too long.
Every day I’ve been reading those words, pondering my answer – wondering, why is that important?
What value will be hidden in that answer – what instructions for life will emerge?
Like most debates in my head I’ve both won and lost every debate. Then something clicked in my head – like a gear or a switch. You see, if I describe my past, or present, that’s not difficult. I just tell the story, explain things along the way about ‘how this happened’, or ‘when I learned that’.
Defining my future is telling the story of something that hasn’t happened yet.
It shouldn’t be fiction. It shouldn’t be a dream – it should feel more like a plan.
I recall arduously crafting a ‘five year plan’, with great pride plotting my personal, professional and financial future. I found it in a drawer six years later. I can’t remember many times I’ve laughed that hard. So, my task this time – is defining my future by designing my future …
If I just change one word, make it ‘designing my future’, suddenly a wealth of possibilities and bright colour fills my mind, unlimited possibilities to see and an unimaginable spectrum of sounds.
Seriously, I’m not describing ‘retirement planning’ or anything remotely akin to that. What I am describing, what I am designing, is my future in a qualitative way. What my mind focuses on, the problems I choose to solve, steps I’ll take to make differences in my world, questions I’ll ask – and more importantly, questions I’ll answer.
I don’t need to figure out where or how I live, how to finance my survival – I don’t need to figure out my schedule of what I do for work and what I do for fun, or even to separate the two, as if those could be separated.
OK, back to my drawing board.
Task: design my future
Time limit: soon
Objectives: happiness, value/worth, something to leave behind that makes life for someone better, makes a community better or the world better. And to lower my handicap too …
I can design my life. I think anyone can.
Can you?
Reader feedback:
BEING WELL
I agree completely :), AG, Cancun, Mexico
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