Refocus

Inventing Your Life

“Refocus”

By

Rob Claudio

As the summer season winds down giving us the last blast of warm and tumultuous weather that comes with this period of the year, I always feel that this time allows for an assessment of sorts before we proceed with Mother Nature’s next cycle.  This is a great opportunity to take inventory of what has been accomplished thus far in one’s life and also take some moments to celebrate some of those achievements.  For most of us, we get consumed with the next project, phase, or task that is dictated by our daily schedule.  If you have children, your world can be consumed with fulfilling their obligations and the moments of personal sacrifice seem to be commonplace.  We tend to be very good about meeting other people’s expectations, however, where we can fall short many times is when we have to contend with our own.  If you made a goal of having a healthier lifestyle and then you routinely fail to meet the parameters of what that means, you might be putting yourself well below the acceptable level of priority.  Perhaps the importance in your life has to do with having financial freedom and in order to achieve this, you have to make those daily sacrifices to be able to obtain this goal.  If your spending is still not under control or you are not paying attention to the details of your household budget, then you may still be falling short of your own expectations.  The topics of significance are many and all of us at any given time may fall short on any account.  The key that we must never forget is that we always have the ability to turn things around.  Give yourself the opportunity to reflect, meditate or focus in relative calm and quiet periods about what has transpired to date.  Do not mourn or make excuses for why things have not gone your way.  Make a decision to accept where you find yourself today and put together your plan for how you will map yourself out of this place if you are dissatisfied with your own results. Think about the many explorers, inventors and artists for instance, that were not successful in many of their first or second ventures.  For many it took repeated re-tooling and re-assessment before they achieved success. The human experience can be a complicated and winding road at times, however, we must not lose faith that all of our experiences have taught us lessons that will help us achieve greater things in the future.   If you are a person that lives for the summer season, then be grateful that you were able to live long enough to get to another one this year. Include in your gratitude the many things that have gone your way since last year.  As you think about where you want to be by the next time summer arrives, keep in mind the things that you want to see achieved by then and let the sails of your ship open up to take you towards that desired destination.

   

“The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress and grows brave by reflection.” –Thomas Paine