Have you lived 75 years, or have you lived one year 75 times? This is a question I ran into while reading Wayne Dyer's "I Can See Clearly Now" a question that really should not be ignored and I have come to realize how lucky I am to have lived such a full life where rarely was it the same year twice. Take a moment and ask yourself the same question: Have I lived 75 years or have I lived one year 75 times?
Has your life become nothing more than a huge pile of repetition? Doing the same things over day in and day out and going nowhere fast? Funny how that darn clock never stops for anyone or anything and then suddenly 75 years has gone by........will you be happy with how you've spent that time, following everyone else's wishes and demands just for the privilege of being employed and bringing home almost enough money for the end of the month?
It wasn't until my mid 40's that I came to realize that working for someone else would not be a pleasant experience for anyone involved, and not because I'm difficult to get along with but because more than anything, it was a time in my life where I really needed to expand, to be in charge where I call the shots, not some nincompoop that can barely manage creating a cup of coffee, never mind run a business. My biggest inspiration in this realization is my husband who at roughly the same age just prior to my meeting him, also came to the same realization and had begun to be his own boss (and yes he still is even though I am here).
Charlie, my husband, is a heavy duty mechanic who is well respected and sought after where I live. Straight out of high school he was tops in his pre-apprenticeship course at our now University and always had top jobs with the top companies but just like all situations where you are working to benefit someone else, it has it's problems that we won't go into because really, if you've ever had a job then you already know the problems associated with having a J.O.B. Watching him build his business, and then eventually through a series of events, helping him to build his business was a fantastic experience for me. Yes he calls the shots, but I get my say and I get to exercise my leadership skills where needed, and most importantly to me, I get to be ME!
So coming back to my mid 40's, I'd been working solely with and for my husband for over 7 years and as things changed, my role became administrator where there is really very little to do on a daily basis and here I was, feeling like I could be doing so much more with myself, and my friends all thought I was nuts. Why? Because if I wanted to, I could just stay home and do the little bit it takes to help Charlie, and most women would kill for an easy life like that, but oh what a stale and boring life it would be for me. I took up golfing, martial arts, got back into music as a lead singer again but despite all the fun and interesting things I was doing to fill my time, the burning question remained: What will I do with the second half of my life?
One thing I absolutely love to do is observe other people's lives. I'm not talking "Peeping Tom" or anything stalkerish like that (is that even a word?), just watching what people are doing with their lives at the moment, observing what's changed from a time before be it a day, a week, a month or a year or more. Isn't it amazing how many people are out there going round and round and round again? How many people do you know that have had the same job for all of their lives where maybe the only thing that's changed is where they work? Or how about that guy that's always heart broken because he keeps dating the same woman over and over where the only thing's that changed is her name, her clothes, her face and maybe her job - but she's exactly the same as the last love of his life. Why is that? Do we not learn? Or are we content to keep living the same year 75 times over?
