If you’re like me, I often find myself wondering whats going to happen next, what does God have for me today kind of questions. As I stare out my office window I can’t help thinking about the next twenty years and what I would like them to look like when I’m 70 something.
Many of us going through life without spending 30 seconds on planning our life. I know back when I was 13 I wanted to be a Major League Baseball player, only to discover I didn’t have the skill and there was no baseball to speak of for anyone 13 or older in my small town. I never pursued the next thing, I just gave up. A huge mistake.
So here I sit, wondering how I want to live out the next decade or two before it all ends. The first thing you do is take inventory right? Inventory on what you ask. On you! I have read a million or two books on business, how to make millions and how to get hired only to discover those authors can’t live your life or do it for you. You are you and what they claim works worked for them. I’ll admit there are common denominators that can be applied to most of us but each person is wired and designed completely different and interprets information from a point of view no one else can have. Let’s get back to the inventory. What questions should you ask yourself in order to pursue the next thing.
1.) What are you good at?
2.) What could I be the best at?
3.) What makes you happy?
4.) What excites you?
5.) What makes you feel accomplished and good about yourself?
6.) What are you most proud of having accomplished in your life?
7.) What do you enjoy sharing and experiencing with other people?
Well you get the idea. This is just a start, you could add your own questions to help flush out the answer or answers. I have found this exercise difficult at different points in my life, particularly today as I crest past 50 years old.
The biggest question of all is: How many people are better off because you lived?
I’ll leave you now to ponder your answer.
Good luck and talk to you soon.
As someone struck down with illness early on in life, I struggle with the question of how to be remembered often. Usually, when I’m not laying in a dark room away from light and noise, recovering from doing what most people take for granted like take a shower or cook a meal. Being no stranger to darkened rooms, there is a lot of time to think about how to live on.
The only thing I’ve come up with at age 33 is that whether you are bedridden, housebound, or healthy or a horse, we all have a choice in the moments we live to make a difference.
We can make a difference by volunteering in a soup kitchen, a hospital, a school, or on a crisis line. Whether we are rich or poor, time rich or time poor, each of us has a chance in this moment to make a difference in the life of another, or many others.
As far as I can see, it is in the lives we touch that we live on.
Hi Andrea, I can’t add anything to your comment, you’re obviously a very special and kind hearted person who has life in perspective.
Many Blessings, Owen.
All good questions. If your parents or teachers were anything like mine they always told us “You can be anything you want.” But it seems to me that we don’t believe that anymore. If you have children you’ll understand when your child starts asking “Why?” Despite the answer you give that question keeps coming. As children we have a voracious appetite for knowledge that seems to diminish as we mature and know everything. Are we teaching them how to think for themselves? Are we teaching them to question everything? We should.
This article begins with the question of “What does God have for me today?” That’s politically incorrect, isn’t it? There should be no religion, no pledge of allegiance, no responsibility, no fault (everyone’s a winner) America has created a society of entitlement where we believe we have a “right” to everything. Some schools have it that even the losing team gets a trophy! We need to have more failure in our lives. We are trying to protect ourselves from everything and destroying the human spirit of drive and ambition. Failure is where learning comes from. I so hope you fail (as I have) just as much as you succeed. That’s what life is… It’s how we measure our success and know that we’re still in the game. Try the impossible, not the safe, and give it everything you’ve got. That’s how to be remembered.
Hi Steve,
I so appreciate your thoughts, we never really do the things we are passionate about full out, pedal to the medal, mostly because of our conditioning. Without failure what do you have, a false sense of security. I as a Christian assume nothing, expect nothing, and recognize our lives can be snuffed out without warning. That is reason enough to JUST DO IT!
Many Blessings, Owen