What if...

Goals are nice.  Sometimes they really move us toward the life of our dreams.  Other times, when we achieve them, we realize we still don't have the life of our dreams.  Or we don't do what's needed to reach the goal and we feel like failures and mentally kick ourselves.  Not the best way to get to the life of our dreams. 

It's been said that the purpose of all our efforts is to be happy at home.  The first time I saw that in print, it stopped me in my tracks.  I thought that it could not be possible that that was the purpose of all my efforts.  I tried to refute it but couldn't.  At that point in my life my home was just a "pit stop" where I ate and slept and then ran out the door to get to the next task.  I kind of resented having to clean the place, change the sheets and towels, etc.  It seemed to me that those chores got in the way of my "real life."

The more I thought about it, the more I thought that being happy at home was a worthwhile goal.  Why else did I go to work every day and run all those errands?  Maybe creating a home where I was happy could be a priority!

Christmas is over...

Christmas is over.  So how do we feel about that?  Are we sad because we had such a wonderful time?  Or are we relieved because now we can slow down and relax.  Some super organized people and some devotees of simplicity suggest that now is the perfect time to start planning next year's holidays.  Maybe we could decide now how we want them to be and start now making plans for that to happen.  Of course, we don't have complete control of things like weather, accidents, illnesses, people losing jobs, etc. that can drastically change everything, but we could begin to develop a general idea of what the best part of the holidays is for us.  For some it's the food.  For some it's family and friends.  For some it's parties.  Whatever our favorite part is, maybe we could spend some time thinking about how we could reduce the difficulties and increase what we love.  We may have more power over how things go than we think!

Emotion

I recently read that emotion is much stronger than rationality, and I know it to be true.  Working toward the life of our dreams is fraught with the pitfalls of too much emotionality and too much rationality.  Our emotions tell us about the dreams of our hearts and our rationality tells us how to get there.  It's not that simple, though.  Underneath all that are the buried sorrows, fears and disappointments that can derail our plans.  So, often, the journey to the life of our dreams has to take side trips to discover the burial grounds for past pain lest it permanently derail the trip.  Professional help of the right kind can be key to the process.