I was laying in my old bed staring at the ceiling. I just finished writing another article for US News, scheduled posts on Hootsuite, brainstorm on blog topics and answered questions on Phroogal.com. My mind constantly goes in full speed so I enjoy taking the time to just stare at the old glow-in-the-dark stars I glued to the ceiling when I was a kid.
I remember just laying in bed always dreaming about what my life would be like in the future. It fueled my imagination to dream about the future.
I began reflecting on a conversation I had with a friend who is having difficulty with his mission in life. He’s still a bit confuse on what he actually wants to do and gets rather defensive on any effort to help. It came at a boiling point and I finally realized that no matter how much assistance I can give, he just has to figure it all out himself. I realized the time I offer to “listen” isn’t helping either.
We’re all searching for answers everywhere else other than in ourselves.
That’s what got me thinking at midnight. I figured out what I wanted but the big differentiator is that I took on a lot of risk. I wasn’t afraid to try and fail. I’ve failed in a number of things but I kept pushing on. That’s the great thing about taking risks, failing and moving forward. Since I decided to keep going the failures become distant memory and only serves as a reminder of a learning experience. The power of hindsight only works when we’ve actually moved forward. It doesn’t matter that unrelated events become part of the story of how we became successful because all that matters is the state in which we are today.
So was it the failures that led me to the person I am today? No. It was both the failures and successes which are all lumped together as experience. We tend to give our failures or successes more credit and forget the real details involved. It’s how our brain copes.
I was asked why I would give up a senior executive role and money to living from couch to couch with the future being undetermined. I replied that I could be a senior executive today with a salary and asking myself a similar question if I gave up something else for the “comfy life.” There really is no use in trying to answer that question. The only question I really need to ask is how content am I today and if the answer is no then I need to make a decision to get back to that state of contentment.
How we look at things, mindset, matters so much and we have complete control over our minds.
It really doesn’t matter if the stars are from the night sky or fake plastic glued on the ceiling. The importance is what it represents.