Cheryl Ries

When I was young, there was only one reality for me.  I was only interested in being a wife and a mother.  Looking back, all the things I did, all the activities I practiced, my play, my favorite times, my significance, all was vested in that journey.  Lo and behold, the two things of significance I have not done in my lifetime are those very things which I spent my childhood playtime and chore time in preparation.  I knew how to cook, bake, clean house, sew and I observed with admiring eyes, the most giving examples of women who were devoted to lives at home with husbands and children.  So, why do you ask, have I not accomplished that yet?  Hmm, it never seemed right the times the roles were offered to me previously.  It's simple.  Life isn't always the way we write the script, but rather in how we read the script which was given to us for our lives!  Or perhaps, even more daring in theory, how do we go off script, and ad lib our lives?

Don't be a victim all the time!  It's easy to complain and admonish yourself, or worse, others, for what has or hasn't transpired according to your preconceived script.  Simple to understand but difficult to believe, we may have to live ad lib.  Yikes!  It's not that hard, haven't you ever had a time in life when you have had to wing it?  It's our faith, our magical molecules, our vast capacity for determining things with reasoning, thought, and cognition which permit us to make our way up as we go.  Pretense, acting, it's all the same really . . . we might feel slightly better were we to know things ahead of time, but imagine if you actually knew the exact moment of your death ahead of time.  The only people I know who are truly eager for that are suicide bombers, who believe in their supposed heroism that the action of death will lead to glory somehow.  They are delusional.  The rest of us, with healthy psyches and emotional personnas, know without a doubt, that some things are much better left unknown! 

So, let go, let your faith guide you, believe in your own journey's validity, have dreams, but sometimes let yourself make it up as you go!  You might discover the person you were really meant to be lives under the shadow and forced shell of the troublesome rigidity of that other person you think you should be.  Dare to dream, but also dare to let your heart, your instincts, but most importantly, your trust in your higher power be your guide.  The zig zags of life are what you'll remember more than the sure steps you  planned ahead of time, I guarantee it!