Who Do You Wish You Were?

If you are not living the life you truly wish for, then who do wish you were? This may seem like an odd question, but buried beneath our sensibilities lies our own ‘sacre coeur’, our own sacred heart. Maybe you have never unlocked its hidden door, but that doesn’t mean that you are ignorant to its existence.

Who did you imagine yourself being when you were five or six years old? Did you play cops and robbers, school teacher, clerk, writer, photographer, doctor, lawyer, nurse, engineer, astronaut, soldier, pilot, cab driver, designer, artist, poet, actor, athlete, accountant, chef, or baby sitter? Did you imagine yourself surrounded by animals, children, ladies waiting to have their hair done and makeup fixed? Did you make paper clothes for your paper dolls out of wrapping paper and bits of ribbon? Did you walk from room to room with a hair brush mimicking a microphone while singing at the top of your lungs? Or did you search for rare butterflies? Did hours pass by while you sat in the shade of weeping willows and read paperback books? Were you happy being around horses even if it was just mucking out the stalls? Or was the birth of a perfect tomato that formed on the vine your parents let you tend to in the garden a cause for joy? What was it that made you so happy that the entire day could pass and nothing else mattered?

Maybe you find it hard to recall what it was. After all, the years can be hard on us and the drudgery of life and plethora of responsibilities can cause us to question our buried bliss.

Nobody makes a living writing, painting, designing, singing, etc. That’s what the world tells us. Want a lecture in how unfeasible your dreams are, just tell somebody. And the ones who can often be the hardest on us are the very ones who should support us the most. But they also have the most to lose if you change. If your world expands, does theirs have to shrink? Although we all know that the happier we are, the happier those around us will be, we have to make the time for these extra activities somewhere.

Don’t let this discourage you. Besides having something happen to a family member, my worst fear has always been dying without reaching my potential, fulfilling my destiny. Of course, my gravitational pull is toward writing. That can make family and friends nervous too. Will I disclose secrets? Expose my friends? Air dirty laundry? Of course not, but it is rational for people to think this as writers often use their impressions of others as characters.

You can’t let other people’s insecurities derail you from your path. Go ahead and join a French class, tango, train for a marathon, volunteer at the local hospital, or just sit in the closet and quiet your mind so that the child within can whisper in your ear a reminder of what used to make you smile. Stay there until you know beyond all doubt what you must do, then go ahead and do it.

Ernest Hemingway said the seeds of what we will do are in all of us. Uncover yours, brush away the soil and the debris. Let your seeds germinate, grow and blossom. After all, who do you wish you were and what do you wish you could do? It should be the same and if it isn’t, make it happen. What are you waiting for?

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