We are born to parents we do not choose and inherit a family name, which we also don’t choose. Our parents, or others who care for us, give us a name that they believe will reflect our potential superpower. We grow up in a neighborhood chosen by others. Off to school, we go and are encouraged or coerced to excel academically, participate in sports and activities, often at the influence and insistence of others. We may then select to go to college or take a job based upon further guidance or our uninformed view of what is ‘best for us.’ What is good for us is carefully set out. We embark on a career we did not imagine based on our talents since it makes sense. You seek companionship, find time to meet someone, and soon you placate the repeated advice of your love interest. Then comes marriage and children, and with them, you make new decisions based on what may be best for them and their future prosperity. Your spouse also has some strong ideas of what is needed, and they become seamlessly entwined into who you are and what you do.
So, whose life are you leading, and where is it going? Is this who you wanted to be? Possibly you resolve for yourself that you are content for now, and one day you will do what you choose to do. But, when is that day, and will it ever come?
Time is limited. We should not be selfish in our decisions, nor should we be selfless to the point that the life we are leading, where we live, what we do every day, does not remotely reflect the ideal we would choose. But, it is never too late until it truly is.
Possibly, you can make the changes you want that will bring you to your ideal and the remarkable life you deserve and desire. Stop chasing other people’s wants and living their lives. What has passed will not be undone, yet what lays ahead is a blank canvas.
Allow yourself to open new thinking to the person you want to be. Then, when you do pass away, the tombstone will reflect your name and that alone. It does not reflect the ideal that others may have had for you all along. They, too, have the same opportunities.
