I would like to find peace in my heart and soul, adventure and love. I'm just finding out that you can live each day as if it was your last. I have discovered in the first half of my life's journey, that all the stuff we strive for and spend all of our time working for is nothing compared to my children, my own happiness, someone to love me unconditional and I, myself, feeling that for someone else. Money is NOT everything, as a matter of fact it is nothing, because everything you need money for, can quickly be taken away.
I owned a home, after leaving a very abusive husband. I had the car, made beautiful gardens. Had nice furniture and all I had to do was continue to work two or three jobs. But my heart was still empty. I then went through 10 hip replacements in five years, all because of this abusive person, and instead of healing I had to rush back to work, because, gee wiz, can't live without the material stuff. My kids went off to college and guess what all I had was one big and empty house.
Then it got taken away from me---all of it---because I had to finally quit working and file for disability which took two years. I had to stay in the park for months, eat out of garbage cans. But guess what I made and I also learned that your "stuff" is nothing compared to your family and friends.
So I guess I got of course, but it leads into what I want to do with my second half of life. Enjoy my childern and happily looking forward to grandchildern. I want to rediscover myself. Example, begin drawing again, painting, sewing and needlework. See places new and old (see old again to remind myself what is in my soul). I want to bring out the wonderful person I am and not believe what I have been told I am---by idiots. I want to enjoy old friends and meet new ones. I promised myself that I will continue to build happiness around me and remember that when one door opens another always opens.
I am not trying to be depressing, the complete oppisite. Every day is a exciting adventure, especially when you have all your family and friends to share it with.

I guess the reason that I ask the question is that I am always re-evaluating my own standing in life and critiquing my successes and opportunities. I don’t like the word failure so I choose to use the word opportunity. What is failure anyway other then a chance to do it again the right way. Of all the things that I have done, or attempted to do, I get the biggest rush when I am able to help someone improve their own life. Why it seems easier to help someone else reach their goals then it is for me to achieve my own, I haven’t quite figured out. Maybe it’s because I’m on the outside looking in where as in your own life, you’re the star that’s on stage and everyone else is looking is. You’re always your harshest critic anyway.

Ra, you hit the nail on the head with the fear bit. How many times have we passed by opportunities because we thought that we weren’t ready, weren’t good enough, and lacked the self esteem that others obviously saw beyond. You mention kids, and that is something I am also blessed with. I often myself the question (Ra, you and I have discussed this before) what message am I sending them when I don’t follow my heart for the sake of security, a paycheck, a relatively smooth and safe existence? I don’t know what the answer is.

I know what my calling in life is and I do it everyday to the best of my ability, I just don’t receive a paycheck for it. I was speaking with an employee of mine (it’s not my company I’m just his boss) who is wanting to make a change in his life. A change that would require him to leave the company we work for yet I found myself spending the majority of my day thinking about how to help out, how to improve his own life that I actually got very little of my own work done. The time flew by and I did help him. That’s what I want to do. It wasn’t work for me, it was enjoyable, it was challenging and the time flew by. Now I just need to figure out to make a living doing it.

You ask me how to break away. Everytime I think about it I am reminded of the story in Matthew when Jesus called to Peter to walk on the water. Peter, once convinced that it was Jesus on the water climbed out of the boat and walked toward him. However once he realized the wind was strong and saw the waves he began to sink until Jesus reached out his hand. Weather or not you Christian or not doesn’t matter as the message is strong. We are all securely in boats, shielded from the wind and the waves yet struggling against the currents or in this case our current circumstances, whatever they may be. Once we see what we want, our dream or our goal, it takes an act of faith or sheer willpower to step outside of the boat (our comfort zone) and begin to make the long arduous journey towards our prize. During our journey we will face rough seas and raging winds but if we keep our eyes on the prize, have faith in our abilities then we will succeed. Personally my problem is taking that first step to get out of the boat and begin the journey and yes I am ashamed to admit that it is because of the very things that Ra mentions: fear and losing my security.

R - “In older, more fortunate cultures, a person would vision for their 'destiny', and when they unearthed it, a community would support them in their vision (ok maybe this is overly simplistic) but what IF... what if we were supported by our communities & families to manifest our livelihood in conjunction with our dreams?”
I guess I kinda had that in mind when I started this tribe. Speaking your dreams and desires often fosters action for a couple of reasons. I know with you Ra I have mentioned on several occasions things that I was going to try and even though we have never met in person (yet), by your very questions of asking me how I was progressing on things it served as an incentive to drive me on. There is no reason that we could not do that on a continual basis through our interactions on this board.

Achievement is a powerful drug. Once you achieve one thing and realize that you do have the power to make the things happen in your life that you desire it does seem to get easier to some extent. Yeah right. It was certainly easy to type that then do it : )

It has been determined that life is a journey and every journey has a destination. Everybody ends up somewhere in life. A few people end up somewhere on purpose.

A clear vision, along with the courage to follow through, dramatically increases your chances of coming to the end of your life, looking back with a deep satisfaction and thinking "I did it. I succeeded. I finished well. My life counted."

Without a clear vision, odds are you will come to the end of your life and wonder what you could have done – what you should have done. And like so many, you may wonder if your life really mattered at all.

Vision gives significance to the otherwise meaningless details of our lives. It’s not always about what we’re doing, but rather why we are doing it. You might have heard this illustration about filling bags with dirt…a menial task to say the least……. nobody gets too excited about filling bags with dirt…unless of course you are filling bags with dirt to save your house or your city…then the menial task takes on greater significance. With vision, you see why we are doing what we are doing.

Vision brings your world into focus.

So let’s focus people…let’s focus!

I've been struggling with this one lately and my answers are varied although I haven't come up with a finished road map just yet because as I grow in age, spirituality, wisdom...my wants, my desires and my needs change as well. What my ideal life looks like now could be radically different from what I would desire it to look like a year from now, 5 years from now, 10 years from now, hell even tomorrow.

If you were to describe your ideal life, what would it look like and more importantly, what steps a you taking to achieve it?