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?
