Creating Your Future

For an article I’m writing, I have ask dozens what they wanted to be while growing up. Today I realized that I had only been asking one part of a two part question.
The second part? I should have been following up with; what do you want to be AFTER you’ve grown up? I have been asking that “want to be” question but, failing to follow up with; where you want to go after you got there or failed to get there!
I talk to many older folks, many of them retired, and I ask them a different question. That question is; what did you do exciting the past week? Often I only get a blank stare! Surely, in seven days something exciting happened to them! Can retirement mean to them, stop the world and let me off? I’m older than most I talk to and yet, I look forward to each new day and its excitement for me. I find it hard for me to fit all of my plans into a short twenty-four hour day! Maybe I should help them stop the world so that they could get back on!
I have some friends, they are a couple, that have a “bucket list.” Things that they plan to do and see before they “kick the bucket”, before they die. They are some of the busiest people I know. They HAVE created their future! I know when I ask them that question I better have a place to sit down. I’m in for a long interesting answer!
The many answers that I have received to my questions have taught me that our lives can be as boring or as exciting as we ourselves want to make then!
The late Steve Jobs said something that I would like to pass on to you. Steve said; “life is short! Our time is limited! Don’t waste that time trying to live someone else’s life”. I’ll add, don’t waste that time letting someone else live yours! Live your own life! Create your own future! And remember that future doesn’t have to be written all in caps to be exciting.
Occasionally I’ll have someone tell me that they wish they were dead! But, they are not! It’s just a time to start making changes! It’s time for them to start planning a better future for themselves! They already know the things they don’t like about themselves, now it’s time to look for the things they DO like about themselves or their world! It’s very hard to help someone that refuses to help themselves. All those “did wrongs” were placed there as learning experiences to show how to do right. The old saying; two wrongs don’t make a right. But, those wrongs can show us the way to make it right.
If you’re doing something you really don’t like, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place! If those old “want to be’s” worked or even if they didn’t work they still can be a help in creating that future. Remember, that future starts right now and has no age limit.