THE JOURNEY

While I am still of reasonably sound mind and as I approach the "Autumn" of my life at 76 years young, I would like to share my thoughts and perspectives on "The Journey" that we call life. Most of us, experience our fair share of ups and downs as we go through life. We experience storms followed by calm seas and sunny days. We have setbacks and successes, obstacles and breakthroughs, challenges and victories and sadness and joy. As we make our journey, our free will allows us to make many choices and whatever we choose to focus on, be it positives or negatives, they will become bigger. Choosing to focus on positives will draw other positive people and situations in to your life. Eventually, choosing positives will become a habit and you will see the glass as half full and the day as partly sunny automatically. It will become who you are and a way of life for you to go with the positive approach to things. No matter how short or long your personal journey is, embrace your life with hope, optimism and passion as much as possible.

Learn to love yourself and accept your human imperfections. With each new day you can start a new direction for your life. Your path in life will have stepping stones along the way that will help you cross a river or divide. Each stone will offer a life lesson or a choice on the next direction to take. Sometimes you will stop at a stone and rest a while.  At these times you may be alone and thinking about many things. It is very hard, yet very good, to be alone with your own thoughts and feelings for a while. As you begin your journey again, be spontaneous and willing to try new paths and adventures, as long as it does not hurt or jeopardize the health and safety of others. Don’t wait until every possible variable is nailed down and certain before taking a spontaneous leap of faith. If you wait until everything is certain, you will never try anything new. 

Do not be afraid to fail and remember that defeat is not losing the war, defeat is not even entering the battle. If you do fail, learn from it, course correct and then move on. Try again and eventually you will likely succeed. The success will be far more satisfying because of earlier failure. While some may say that no good deed goes unpunished, there are many who will play it forward and often there is a return to you down the road that you do not even realize is connected to your original deed. When you have to make a difficult decision, try to sleep on it and consider the advice of others, especially the wise and learned. However, if it is still not a clear decision, ultimately go with your gut feel as it is right most of the time. Remember that “not to decide is to decide”. 

Be thankful for the blessings that you have. If something is worth your time, it is worth doing well. Live your life in the present moments.  Stop regretting the past or fearing the future as yesterday is history and tomorrow is a mystery. All we really have for certain is today and the present is a “gift”. Learn from your mistakes and wherever possible learn some things from the mistakes of others. Life is too short to learn everything from your own mistakes!  

Try hard to always be honest, especially to yourself. You are human and will sometimes fail on this but try hard and correct things as soon as you can. Allow yourself to freely feel your emotions and love despite the risk of being hurt or rejected. Love can be blind and it is still better to have loved and lost than never at all. If you could have a choice of pain or nothing which would you choose? Without the risk of pain we could not fully experience life or love. 

Everyone and everything comes in to your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime. If you could have half of your wishes you might easily double your troubles and your possessions can possess you. Your physical body and your thoughts are your only true possessions in life. Everything else is on temporary loan to you. A truly free person has nothing but his body and thoughts. When in good health a person may have many wishes and desires. When health is gone a person has only one desire. Your body is your temple and you will “Rust Out” quicker than you wear out. Realize the joy of giving rather than getting. Be happy that in this vast and wondrous universe, you were created. Pray that you will still have more days to come. 

ReeBee, July 29, 2021