Life is lived best by making the choice to live it deliberately. Accomplishing this requires focusing on whats important, making a plan, and going for it. Sometimes fate presents an occasion to do so as a result of corporate downsizing, or perhaps some other life changing event provides the impetus. Regardless of how one finds themselves at the point of realizing they want to re-focus their life, the key thing is to take advantage of the opportunity and just get started. Optimally, selecting a direction for life would be thought out early, maybe late teens or early twenties. The reality is that it usually happens much later in life, if ever. The norm for many folks is to blast on forward into adulthood without any real plan, or at best, a seat-of-the-pants plan. Sometimes that works out okay, and with minor tweaks here and there, life takes on a direction that suits just fine. However, the vast majority hit bumps somewhere in the middle and dissatisfaction sets in. Something or usually several somethings just cease to work anymore, motivation disappears, and life may leave much to be desired. It can be a lot of things, like maybe a career losing its luster. Perhaps over time, greeting the day has gone from "Good morning Lord!" to Good lord, its morning". And then again, it may be difficulties in relationships like friends, family, spouse, kids, church, and on and on. Whatever the problem area seems to be on the surface, I've observed that more often than not, the real problem lies with vocation. In other words, what we do with our life to both earn a living and satisfy the underlying need to be productive and useful i.e. to be about something. After all, we spend the majority of nearly every day doing it, so it better be satisfying. One of the best books ever written is the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. Although not its intended purpose, it is a great illustration of a man who planned his life and worked that plan. He made adjustments here and there but early on had decided exactly what he wanted to accomplish. He wanted to earn a living; raise a family; become so good at his profession that people sought him out; work hard for about 20 years building his business; and then leave the business on autopilot supplying him with income so he could do all the other things he wanted to do. As it turned out, he was able to spend more than half his life doing pretty much what he enjoyed, not to mention being involved in an amazing number of endeavors. Innovative printer, businessman, founding father, philosopher, statesman, diplomat, scientist, inventor, author, and more are merely the tip of the ice-burg of what Franklin accomplished during his long life because he knew what he wanted, planned for it, and worked it. There are many ideas one can take from Franklin's book, but one of the best pieces of advice is if you really want to know something, study everything you can about it, then find someone who knows it extremely well and apprentice under them until you know it as well or better than your mentor. Great advice for getting what you want in life! |
