waterwalker

I’m reading Unstoppable by Nick Vujicic

In it he talks about visiting Billy Graham.  He says Reverend Graham wishes he’d spent more time with his family and done more to show his faith and love of God.  (Can you imagine that?  He wishes he'd done more to show his faith and love of God?)

He says listening to him reflect on his life and career as an evangelist caused him to step back and think about what he, Nick, wants to look back on when he reaches a similar place in his life.

He says we should not live with the expectations that happiness will come some day after we accomplish some goal or acquire some thing.  Happiness should be available to you in each moment, and the way to access it is to live in balance spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically.

One way to determine the balance that works for you is to look toward the end of your life and then live so that you will have no regrets when you arrive there.  The idea is to create a clear image of the type of person you want to be as you age and the mark you hope to make, so that every step of your journey takes you closer to where you want to arrive.

He believes if you create the life you want in your imagination, it is possible to create it in reality minute by minute, hour by hour, and day by day.  Instead of a business plan or a house plan, consider this your life plan.  Some advise that the way to do this is to think about your own funeral and ponder what you would want your family and friends to say about you, your character, your accomplishments, and how you impacted their lives. 

Instead of that scenario, he prefers to put himself in Reverend Graham’s position on the day they met in his mountain cabin.  Here was this great man nearing the end of a remarkable life in which he’d done so much of God’s work, and he still had a few regrets.  It may be inevitable.  Few achieve a perfectly balanced life, but he thinks it’s worth a try.

He doesn’t want to have any regrets at all, which may not be possible.  But he says he’s going to do his best and reset his life meter on BALANCE.  He suggests we take a moment to do the same if we feel, as he does, that we all need to pause now and then to examine where we’ve been, where we are now, where we want to go, and how to become a person who will be remembered for making a positive difference in the world.

This really made me stop and think.  It's made me reevaluate, which you would have thought I'd done enough of after my diagnosis of stage iv cancer.  Things have changed since my initial diagnosis, surgeries, treatments and where I am now.  Each change has brought different circumstances with different evaluations.  I really thought at the beginning of this I would be returning to work.  Even after I had to retire I thought I still might.  I have fought with accepting I can now be an artist.  I have fought with the fact that I've always had insecurities with that and I don't know why.  

I do not want to have regrets with God, people, art, writing, with anyone or anything.  And I want to make a positive difference in the world.

Do you?  What do you need to balance in your life?  What positive difference can you make?