It is the middle of December already; however, I noticed something a bit unusual in my front yard today. I live in San Antonio Texas and the weather has been primarily warm (wearing shorts today), with a lot of extra rain. I noticed that one of my rose bushes had a bunch of blooms, and potential blooms on it -- and this just struck me as very odd. Even with the war weather, most plants and trees seem to know the season and will act accordingly. For example, the tree in my backyard is completely void of any leaves due to it being the fall/winter season. But this rose bush has a mind of its own, and has decided to bloom regardless of what mother nature has directed it to do. This really got me thinking about how we human beings seem to fall into seasons and predominantly follow what the social norm is at the time. Why do we always feel so obligated to follow the crowd? Most of us actually seem to care about what other people will think about us if we go against the social norm, and tend to back down and blend in with the rest of humanity. To be honest, no one has made great changes or blazed new trails by following the path that everyone else is traveling on. In order to facilitate any change, we must first decide to change, and then push forward and actually make that change. If nothing changes, then nothing changes!! Why just stick to the socially accepted ways of doing things, or in accepted belief systems, when you can forge new ground and make changes in yourself that might even benefit the world as well??!! If we continue going down the path with everyone else, we will end up in the same place. Have you ever taken a moment to see how your future might unfold if you continue doing what you are currently doing? Most of us never seem to see that distant and far away future, and then wonder how we ended up where we do in that far away future. Living on purpose is not the easiest concept for most of us to grasp, but if we don’t take control of where we want to go, we will likely be unhappy where we end up.
Can you imagine assessing how well you are hitting a target at the gun range if there is no target there? Yes, you will be “busy” firing rounds down range, but if you don’t know where to place the sites of your weapon, you will never hit anything specific. That is the same with our path in life, we can find ourselves being extremely busy but never find ourselves being productive. You can run in place all day long and feel like you are working hard, but you won’t find yourself moving anywhere. I am not suggesting that being busy is always unproductive, but if you were to really drill down on how you are spending your time and efforts, you will likely find that you are running in place. Being tired from being busy, but unproductive, does not equate to forward progress!!
Just like my rose bush in the front yard, blooming is not necessarily seasonal because our goals in life are not going to manifest themselves, we must be active and blooming in every season to reach our goals. Can you imagine how much different your lives would be if we were intentional and blooming every day of our lives? I challenge you to scrutinize how you are actually spending your time each day – are you simply “killing time” by staring at the television or video games – or are you ensuring that the majority of your days are filled with activities that will clearly propel you towards your life’s desires? I also challenge you to figure out what that “target” is for you so that you know where you are going, the how can be figured out along the way, but we simply need to know what direction we are heading!!
STAY STRONG AND LIVE YOUR LIFE!!!
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