Dreaming, Life, etc...

Lots of life events happened for Kelly and me last week. Most of them were negative as there was a death in the family and we spent from Tuesday till Saturday dealing with the initial ramifications of that death.

This death for me really hit on some cords that had been swirling around in my head for a couple of months previous. Namely, I gave up on dreaming and aspiring a long time ago. I tend to think this happened when I started working full time. I started making some money and life was comfortable. I had friends, a life of sorts and money to buy and do things with. Dreams kind of went out the window as I became comfortable and complacent.

Now, don't get me wrong. I went out and achieved a modest amount of success for myself past that. I bought a house, I jumped from a blue collar to a white collar job and I of course married my beautiful wife Kelly. All of this was good and I'm proud of where I've gotten in life. Not everyone ever achieves what I've pulled off at 31.

But, where are my greater dreams. I've always wanted to write a book and continue putting it off. I want to travel and see the world. Why did I suddenly give up on those dreams? Why is it that when my wife asked what my dream job is did I just stare at her stupidly and not have an answer? I honestly don't know and I'm slowly trying to weed through it all in my head.

On top of that, I've been taking being alive for granted. I think we as humans tend to think we have more time on this Earth than we really do. We measure our lives in the metrics of years and decades. That leads us to put things off because there's always tomorrow or next year. This also leads us to let the little stresses of day to day life overwhelm us and we forget the now. How many times have I had a bad day and shut myself off from Kelly or the dog or my family in general? My honest answer is, more times than I'm comfortable with.

Now I see how I should view life. Life should be measured in days and seconds. You can do all the exercise you want, you can eat all the right things, you can be rich or poor but the truth of the matter is... none of it matters. Those things effect your quality of life but none of them will save you when your time comes. Your time is your time and it could come at any time. I could live to be 90 or I could die when I'm 32 of some unknown disease hiding within my body.

The moral of this story is. My life is short. I don't necessarily have those decades that I anticipated having. I might only have days or weeks in reality. I need to live my life as though that's the case. I need to chase my dreams with the fiery passion of someone that has a limited time on this planet. I need to get off my ass and write my book. And I need to remember that my job is just there as a means to feed myself and keep the lights on. My wife Kelly, my family, my friends and my passions are why I'm here. My job is just a place I go for 8 hours a day to fuel my true reasons for living. I'm not going to sweat the small stuff anymore. Life is too short. I have places to go, dreams to find and a beautiful wife to walk the path of life with.