The Life Dream Archive

I have a confession to make, sad but true. I haven’t been writing. On April 9th I wrote that I would be scaling back my blog writing to 3 days per week, but writing every day. I have not held my word on this.

It’s amazing how the discipline of the first month propelled me to keep up with daily writing. Then once I gave myself too general of a goal I basically used it as an excuse to put it off – for weeks.

Of course a lot has also changed over the past few weeks – I am working my jobs but have also received a wonderful influx of side work, kids have a ton going on and to top it off we just moved. Oh & we have a big trip in a couple weeks. So as my wise boyfriend told me – “wait til you’re back from your trip to recommit to a more disciplined writing schedule again.”

So that’s the plan. I’ll be back more consistently, with some nice juicy posts I’ve been mulling over, probably mid to late May.

In the meantime though I do want to tell you that I am seeing some awesome things happen in my life since I took the leap of faith to pursue my dreams. It’s amazing how the universe (God) steps things up when you set your intention on what you were made to do.

I look forward to sharing more about those things with you very soon.

Oh & while I’ve slacked off on writing I have still been attending Toastmasters! Still actively working toward my dreams…just a little slower at the moment.

This is an interesting exercise that I like to revisit from time to time. I also love to hear how people respond.

Here’s my question to YOU:  So if I gave you 1 billion dollars, in other words enough money so that you would never need to work for a living again, what would you do with your life?

Now, I don’t just want to hear about how you’d travel or buy tons of shoes – those are fine, but what I would really like to know is what your dreams are, the kinds of things you’d work at or risks you’d take if you knew you didn’t have to worry about making a living.

So will you please tell me in the comments section below? I can’t wait to hear about what you would do!

I know this may be hard for some of us, but I think it’s really important to think about.

It was one month ago (March 6th) that I started this blog and publicly committed myself to living my dream (& writing here every day)!!  Wow, it’s been an interesting journey so far.  There have been moments where it was more challenging than I thought, areas of my life that were challenged more than I could have imagined.  There have been some great rewards already – like being able to help some friends, getting in to better habits, writing every day (even if it’s not a lot, on days when I’m exhausted) and I also got back in to Toastmasters.

I really appreciate the support I’ve received from so many friends.  I feel very blessed by you.  I’m excited about the direction of my life and I definitely have a clearer vision of what I want to achieve and even some directions as to how!  I’m so excited!

In the coming weeks, I may be changing a little bit of the format of the writing of this blog.  To improve the posts, I may end up posting a little less frequently.  I feel like a lot of these posts are, as Anne Lamott would say, shitty first drafts.  But hey at least I’m writing and staying accountable in my journey to fulfill my life’s purposes. I’ll let you know when I finish deciding how to  proceed.  For now I’ll still be posting every day.

Thank you for reading, I am beyond blessed that anyone would even like to read along this journey with me.

<3, Andrea

My reason/ excuse is that I worked two jobs today – my reason I’m not writing much tonight.

So I am working on trust in a certain area of my life, therefore I thought it apropos to share this quote:

“The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.”
― Ernest Hemingway

🙂

Last night I heard a powerful story of vision and passion, a story I am excited to share with you.  At Toastmasters* one of my co-members spoke about the idea of vision, specifically our individual visions for what we wanted to achieve through Toastmasters.  He invited us to take a moment  to really think about what we hope to do with the speaking and leadership skills we are learning.  He illustrated what is was like to have vision (& pursue it) with two stories.  One of those stories especially struck a chord with me.

Viktor Frankl was an Austrian psychiatrist and neurologist who lived through WWII in Europe.  Dr. Frankl was also Jewish and as such was relegated to concentration camps, where, as you may guess, he encountered the extremes of human suffering.  What set Dr. Frankl apart however was his approach to the ordeals he faced.  Despite the dire circumstances of his surroundings, including all of his family suffering similar fates, he decided to use his passion and experience to help others cope with their desperate situation.  He used his knowledge to help those around him and himself.  Here is an excerpt from the book he wrote after he was released from  Türkheim camp:

“We stumbled on in the darkness, over big stones and through large puddles, along the one road leading from the camp. The accompanying guards kept shouting at us and driving us with the butts of their rifles. Anyone with very sore feet supported himself on his neighbor’s arm. Hardly a word was spoken; the icy wind did not encourage talk. Hiding his mouth behind his upturned collar, the man marching next to me whispered suddenly: “If our wives could see us now! I do hope they are better off in their camps and don’t know what is happening to us.”

That brought thoughts of my own wife to mind. And as we stumbled on for miles, slipping on icy spots, supporting each other time and again, dragging one another up and onward, nothing was said, but we both knew: each of us was thinking of his wife. Occasionally I looked at the sky, where the stars were fading and the pink light of the morning was beginning to spread behind a dark bank of clouds. But my mind clung to my wife’s image, imagining it with an uncanny acuteness. I heard her answering me, saw her smile, her frank and encouraging look. Real or not, her look was then more luminous than the sun which was beginning to rise.

A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth – that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way—an honorable way—in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment. For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words, “The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory.”

–Saying Yes to Life in Spite of Everything: A Psychologist Experiences the Concentration Camp (in German), known in English by the title Man’s Search for Meaning (1959)

When I heard this story last night it cut me to the quick.  We all have situations we are trying to “survive,” or muddle through without losing our minds – a dramatic family situation, a bad relationship, an irritating job, etc.  But most of us (here in America) are not facing the real drama of living through something like a concentration camp.  Yet this man, Dr. Viktor Frankl, when faced with a nightmare, decided to not give up hope or lose his vision.  He reframed his circumstances and continued to use his God-given gifts anyway and as a result he helped many as well as himself.

Dr. Frankl went on to teach across Europe and the US, including Harvard.  He received 29 honorary doctoral degrees, published 39 books, translated into 40 languages, one of which (Man’s Search for Meaning) was toted one of  “the ten most influential books in the United States.”  In 1985 he was awarded the Oskar Pfister Award for contributions to religion and psychiatry.

I look forward to learning more about Dr. Frankl.  But in the meantime, I am blessed to have heard a bit of his story.  It fuels my commitment to live fully, passions infused and vision intact, despite the hard times.

Imagine what is possible if we choose to shine despite the darkness, if we reach down to the deepest part of us and pull up our true selves to face the world!!

 

 *Toastmasters is an educational group which helps you learn speaking & leadership skills.  (Let me know if you ever want to come with- it’s awesome)