Who Do I Want to Be?

So often in life we are concerned more with the next ‘goal’ to achieve, and the next target or challenge to conquer, because this is what the world teaches us to focus on.  Success is measured by what we have achieved.  For many of us, goals and achievements are often associated with our work or career, or our financial status.

However, sadly many people forget that at the end of our time here on earth, when we are faced with our last days, we realize that all those goals, the attainment of things, the number of rungs on the career ladder of success, or even the status of our bank account, means very little.

When we look back on our life, are we really going to care so much about what we have attained, or perhaps the measure of success in the number of boxes we ticked on our list of “to-do’s”?  Or are we going to realize that our level of happiness, the richness of our life in terms of what we have learned, the wisdom we have gained and the love we have shared, is more a reflection of the person we have become.  When faced with the realization that our bodies and our physical life is limited, we are confronted with our eternal self – our spirit that lives on.

So, perhaps the better question to ask, when we look forward in life to the next step, the next phase or the goals we want to achieve, is the question - “Who do I want to become?” “What kind of person do I want to be?” - rather than “What is the next goal I want to achieve?”.   If you are someone who prefers to see life in terms of what you don’t want (or what you want to move away from), you may ask yourself – “What kind of regrets will I have when I look back on my life?”

The richness of our inner life, of what we have learned, the wisdom we have gained, the people and love in our life, are worth more than any list of “to-do’s” or goals we aim to achieve.  Our measure of success in life is perhaps more to do with the extent to which we have grown as a human being.  How far have we come in life?  Have we learned the lessons put before us and grown from them?  Or have we found ourselves continually repeating the same lessons, wondering why we feel stuck on a treadmill doing the ‘same old, same old thing’? How many times are we prepared to either come up with excuses or play the victim of life's circumstances?  Instead we could realize that personal growth, happiness, peace and love, come freely and quickly when we pay attention to our thinking, our choices, and whether we have focused on the lessons in life and applied them.

Gaining new skills and achieving personal milestones are certainly necessary for the health and expansion of our mind, our body and our understanding of our self and the world we live in.  However, to some degree, the amount of goals we can achieve is limited.  Once we achieve one goal, then we can become bored until we create and achieve the next goal.  A better question or perspective may be to ask ourselves if the activity we are engaged in is actually expanding our understanding of our self, others and our world.  Are we learning more about what it is to accept and love our self?  Are we learning to let go of attachments, our expectations of others, and our desire to enforce our values on other people?  When we let go of the need to approve and be approved, we give our self and others the freedom to be, the freedom to learn, and the freedom to be the best we can be.  When we are invested and focused on telling others what they should or need to know, we stop taking notice of the very lessons we need to learn for ourselves.

The universe has a wonderful way of reminding us, again and again, of the lessons we need to learn.  Truly, our life is what we make of it, and the quality of our questions, our thinking and the choices we make.  Are you becoming the person you desire to be?  Or are you just living according to a ‘tick-box’ list of things to do and achieve, ladders to climb, or bank accounts to increase?

At the end of your days, are you going to have regrets?  How do you want to feel when you look back on your life?  What will matter the most to you?  Are you happy with the person you have become?  Have you lived your life with love, gratitude, and fullness of your being? 

Our life here is most definitely limited – so live with gratitude and live wisely.  What you don’t learn now, you will still need to learn later. 

Live well, learn wisely, and love
whole-heartedly. 
This is your life, make it count!

Rebecca Novacek
www.livingwithspice.com