OK- you've talked yourself down from any sort of panic and you've pretty much figured out what your dream and adventure is going to be...and you're going to stick to it.
But what happens when it gets tough and you start rethinking: "Maybe I should stop this - all my friends and family and spouse are telling me that I shouldn't be doing this...maybe I should begin to think like a 'mature' person and return to a 'respectable' job." Here come the Naysayers.
First, I've discussed not giving up your dream. But you get drawn off track: you start listening to well-meaning but ill-advised friends/family who tell you to put your dreams away.....or you start listening to your demons - those voices that tell you that you're stupid for following such folly. No matter how - but you're drawn away from your dreams.
You get off track, which means you've been "on track" but some how got off track, or you never accepted the challenge to begin with, or just think this dream business is not for grown-ups. Whatever - you're not on track.
Finding these people in our community is sort of hard at first, mostly because they don't stick out. Why? Because they don't really accomplish much with their lives. They are the lonely, faceless nobodies that we don't see every day. They are the people who live lives of quiet desperation.
You know people who are in dead-end jobs or in a job that they hate. All of these people are people who have either not accepted the challenge that was laid before them, or they have accepted it, then some where along the line left the quest or completion of the task of accepting the challenge.
And if they are successful, their success comes with baggage...bitterness, hatred, jealousy, solitariness, anger, insecurity, fear. You sound like a real attractive guy/gal!!!! Another Roseane Rosannadana joke!!!
This makes you wonder - how getting off the track can lead to such miserable life - from the inside out.
What happens when you follow your dreams is that you have someone along who can not only help you, but makes your adventure bearable during the really hard times. If you don't have that faith, then the toll of working through your problems and tough times takes too much out of you, and what's left is a very jaded 'tude of the world.
This wearied attitude accompanies all those who have been on track and get off, but those who never got on track to begin with....this is the person who never accepted the challenge. When the denial part of the challenge came up, they agreed and walked away. They are the wannabes, the also-rans and the "I coulda been a contenda'!"
That's why it's hard to find these people. They have been beaten down and defeated by the circumstances of their lives, instead of using those circumstances to excel and be more than what they thought they could be.
We are all presented with a challenge, and if we don't take it, then we lead a live of quiet desperation. That's the trade-off for passing or turning down the opportunities or challenges that we face in life. If we don't finish or complete the challenge, we live a life of quiet desperation. If we get diverted from the path and take the short cut to finish the challenge, we live a life of quiet desperation. And my down and dirty translation of what is quiet desperation: hell on Earth - more like the Ninth Circle of Hell on Earth! OK - that's a Dante type joke - but really not.
Hell on Earth is living under the shadow of the short cut you took to complete the challenge - whether illegal, immoral, or just unfair, it will haunt you. If you think it won't, then you're even in worse shape than you think - this is no conscious to tell you what's right and what's wrong, and really this whole blog is lost on you, so click on some other site, and don't waste your time. But for most of us, it does haunt us.
We are left wondering?....what would have happened had I just hung on a little longer?....what would I have been today had I taken that challenge?...what would have happened had I followed that dream? We never know and live in the world of shoulda, coulda and oughta.
Then we become bitter, angry, have hatred and suspicion of everyone else; we're insecure, fearful, jealous and distrusting of others - that's a life of quiet desperation that is screaming inside your head. The fact is that if you take a shortcut, or don't complete your challenge or pass on the challenge, this is what happens to you.
Look at it this way....when you follow Christ, God and the Holy Ghost,
you always have someone to turn to who can help you. He will always be
with you always! So if you need him for small problems, large problems and problems in between - this is where you need to turn.
This is not a "fire and brimstone" message here. It's really very
simple: accept the challenge before you and become more than what you
ever thought you could be with God to help you through every little
part of the path, or refuse it, divert it, or deny it, and you will
live in obscurity, alone all in plain site.
Hopefully I've enticed you more to find out what it would be like to accept the challenge rather than be fearful of not accepting it!
Make your list!
Make your vision board!
List your dreams!
So now go out there and get on with your adventure!
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