How big do you want your life to be?
“You will become as small as your controlling desire; as great as your dominant aspiration.” James Allen
When I was small, my friends and I would lie on recliners in the back yard on Friday nights and gaze at the stars. Our futures were entirely in front of us and we would speak as if the world was our oyster. And it was.
An idea is a powerful thing, perhaps more powerful than any force on Earth. What I didn’t know then was how strong is the link between our ideas and the lives we manifest. Though I’m a spiritual person, I don’t mean this in the spiritual sense. What I mean is that we pretty much have the autonomy to decide what kind of life we’ll lead.
With each passing year, I can see this more and more clearly. If you decide that the circumference of your life will be to go to work, come home and watch television, and go to bed, that is what you’ll do. If you decide that you want to make an impact on others, perhaps as a teacher or health professional or coach, that is what you’ll do. If making a lot of money tops your list, you have a good chance of doing so.
Depending on your paradigm of life, this concept might either come to you as banal or revolutionary. For some, for those who were raised to believe they actually charted their own course, they know that there is cause and effect. While you might not be able directly to bring about everything you want, you have much say. If you believe that life is something that happens to you rather than for you, then you may find it difficult to internalize the degree to which you are calling the shots in your life.
I sometimes wonder about those people in the neighborhood of my youth, the ones whose backyards we inhabited on those Friday nights. Did they have dreams? Did they pursue them? Were they living their dreams? Did they look up at the same stars and imagine where they might end up?
And what about you? How big is your life? How big do you want it to be? I suggest you think bigger than you might offhand. And by “bigger”, I trust you know I’m not talking about material things. I hope you’ll allow yourself to consider how much meaning you can wring out. How much impact you can have on others. How much love you can share.
On the next clear night, look up at the stars. Consider how big is the sky. Now double the size of the life you’ve decided upon. There’s room for you.
