May 27, 2005

SPOIL, SPOILING, SPOILT
Our culture is the product of our own impatience. We want a perfect loving romantic marriage, a gorgeous home from the date of the marriage, well behaved children, each adult member of the family to have a car, a TV and computer in every room, no discord, and everyone to live by their own fantasies of what to expect from life. All these expectations creates a great deal of stress when the fairy tale existence refuses to appear.

Materially the younger generation wants what it took our parents and grandparents a lifetime to obtain. Many have what money can buy, but purchasing happiness is not as easy. What has become lost is theprocess of working towards a dream/ of fulfilling a hope. The process of living is the significance of life. Without it the possessions lose their value. They were gotten too quickly and too easily.

People need to have something to hope for in retirement years. If the lessons in life were not imbedded in youthful years about the fun of the effort of obtaining the goal, then old age can certainly be a time for despair looked at with dread instead of with joy.

At sixty years of age I found that I had a voice and took singing lessons. It was a gift I would not have appreciated at a younger age. My “alone” years after my husband died taught me to value the “one” in Alone. That “one” could never be alone. There is too much to accomplish. My husband was not a proponent of travel. I’ve traveled the world after he died. I’m writing this bimonthly column. I am appearing at book signings and giving presentations for my newest book which is listed below. I counsel relationships with the young and the old, married and unmarried. New activities challenge me and keep me young.

What do you challenge yourself with? What goals do you have in life? Are they within the realm of reality? Have you tried to obtain a bachelors degree in six months instead of the four years it usually takes? Do you think that while working a full time career, spending time with your spouse and quality time with your offspring that you just might be trying to accomplish too many goals and have lost sight of the process of life? Why not leave some goals for your old age? Statistics illustrate that the life span of one hundred years is more frequently happening. Why not save some of the goals for your later years. Why rush through life so that it becomes a blur in your memory? Do you want your life to be similar to fast forwarding a movie only to wonder what the plot was?

Do you want to be happy? What do you need to do for yourself or for others to obtain that goal? Stop the blur in your life. Begin to live.