 |
My personal experience suggests
there are more than 10 occasions when you should seriously consider doing so,
starting with when there’s a milestone event in your life
|
1. When There’s a Milestone Event in Your Life
Whether it’s graduating from high school, or graduating from college, getting married, or having a baby, milestone events are a time to revisit your dreams, desires, and choices. For instance, when I had Tanita, my priorities changed. Flexibility to work from home was what I wanted most out of a job, and so I sought it out on every job. In fact, what attracted me about the job of being a Commissions Analyst was that it could be done entirely from home. When I had Tanita, I changed behaviors and interests too. I stopped drinking altogether. And for entertainment, I had friends over once a week. The rest of my free time was spent finding ways to entertain Tanita. I teamed up with Nadya and other friends who had children who were around Tanita's age, and we would go to Happy Hollow Park and Zoo, Bamboola, The Jungle, Great America, Raging Waters, to the skating and ice-skating rink, the San Francisco Zoo, the Exploratorium, swimming pools, and more.
When you have a milestone event in your life, spend some time to think about what choices and routines you should change. It will be time well spent.
2. When You Lose Someone
In my case, it
was losing my mother. It led me to make significant strides in anger management, and to become more of the kind of person I admired - a low maintenance person. The initial change, talked about in an earlier post, The Path to Change,
led to me eventually learning to meditate.
I have now been meditating on a regular
basis for almost 8 years, and I have been going
from strength to strength in my quest to give
up ego attachments, with all sorts of side benefits, including telepathy.
Yes, losing
someone is an occasion on which you should definitely revisit your desires, dreams, and choices.
3. When You Experience a Major
Setback
Of my setbacks
and losses, my depression stands out
as one that made me realize, what was
good for me and what was bad for me, what was
necessary to my life, and not necessary to my
life, and what was missing from my life. It led me
to make several life changes, the biggest of which
was deciding to have a child, and deciding to
move to America.
An interesting
side note. My post about my depression, which you can read here, is titled,
If Life Is So Good, Why Do I Feel So
Sad? I have grown stronger and happier with every year, since I overcame that depression. So much so, a day might come when I will write the post, “If Life Is So Bad, Why Do I Feel So
Happy?” It is not inconceivable.
The message is:
Never get discouraged by a setback, even as horrible as a depression. It
is an opportunity to make changes, and
experience a greater level of happiness and comfort than you
can imagine.
4. When You Have A Wake-up Call
Of all the
personal wake-up calls, perhaps a good
one for me to talk about is the wake-up call
I got from a life insurance company. It
was when I tried to renew a 10 year term
life policy with them. I asked the agent how I could get the lowest level premium. She
said the best level premiums were offered to Preferred
Plus customers. I could have a health examination and based on the results, I might be eligible for that Preferred Plus premium. I thought "Ha, I am in great shape. I will definitely be eligible." So I said "yes, let's do the health examination".
Now comes my wake-up
call - I did not make the cut for Preferred
Plus. I had a normal BMI, a perfect ticker, great blood pressure, good cholesterol readings. And more. But there was one aspect of my health profile which disqualified me. Want to know what it was?
It was my HbA1c - or average blood sugar level over 3 months. Unfortunately, it was 6.4 – which was the highest end of the pre-diabetes range.
If my reading was any higher - 6.5, I would be diabetic.
Boy, was that the wake up call of my health
life. I said what does the insurance company know that I don’t? I decided to learn everything I could about pre-diabetes and diabetes, and to take steps to bring down my
HbA1c.
Today, my diet
is radically different – for the foods
I no longer eat (rice, wheat, grains, most fruit,
most dairy, all starchy vegetables); and for the
foods I have added (fats such as coconut oil, butter,
avocado, heavy whipping cream). And I have made positive progress in bringing down my HbA1c. It was 5.6 when I last checked.
Yes, a wake-up
call is supposed to do exactly what it says. Wake you up. Don’t ignore it.
5. When what you have been doing
is not working
I love this
one. It’s how I turned my relationship with my daughter from one of frustration to one of appreciation. How? I
woke up to the fact I needed to become
more accepting, more empathetic,
more relaxed, and more understanding. Along the way, I went from Tiger Mom to Helicopter Mom to Hippie Mom – graduating Summa Cum Laude. Interested in finding out more? Read
my post, “It’s Called Motherhood 2”.
When what you
have been doing is not working, what
should you do? Try a different tack. That’s what
you should do. Believe me, it works.
6. When something shakes you up
Have you heard
about Diogenes of Sinope? Never mind if you haven’t. I wrote a post
dedicated just to him, “The Man In the Bathtub”. You can read it.
Diogenes was shaken
up when he and his father were discovered
to be counterfeiting money and banished
from Sinope.
It shook him
up. That, and a spiritual awakening at the Oracles of Delphi made him a changed man.
He began to live a life that was so unusual,
his name made history.
There will be
occasions in your life when something
shakes you up.
My depression
was definitely one such occasion.
But I am
regularly shaken up by what I read and hear.
Like when I
hear that someone I know, or I know of,
has been diagnosed with a terminal illness, and
has just months to live.
Or when I learned
about this week’s school shootings in Florida.
It wakes me up
to the value of life, and not making
mountains out of molehills, and not causing inconvenience or pain to other people, and
not spending my time flippantly, or on fripperies.
When you are
shaken up by anything, don’t dismiss it. Let
the experience make you realize the
value of life, and make you a better person.
7. When you make a geographical move
What’s the
point of transplanting yourself, if you don’t
thrive in the soil in which you’ve transplanted yourself? I was faced with this possibility when I immigrated to America. I had to
learn to thrive in a new culture, with different challenges, and different opportunities. I learned to
drive, I learned to cook, I learned to do laundry. And I learned to adapt to new career options, beginning with the admin position I sucked at, as described in my post, The United States of Friendship Part 2.
I became one
with America.
If you make a
geographical move, it is a classic opportunity
for revisiting your desires, dreams and choices, a classic moment for reinvention.
8. When the course you are on is
causing you to lose sleep
Losing sleep
over anything is not worth it. I realized this after some flaming fails in my
life. One example was my approach to investing.
For a while, I was jazzed about
trying out investing ideas I had just
discovered. They were old ideas, but
just because I had just discovered them, I thought
they were MY BIG SECRET. Idiot! ‘Dogs of the Dow’ was one of them. Bottom fishing was another.
Investing like Warren Buffett, another.
Surely, I could find mispriced gems like him. Idiot Minoo!
I discovered
that I was chasing rainbows. And I was setting myself up to lose money and lose sleep. Among several flaming fails, there was Krispy
Kreme. I did get a Toastmasters trophy for
my speech about my investment in Krispy Kreme. But what was the cost of the lesson behind that trophy? This post will tell you.
After I
determined I had spent enough time embarrassing
myself and making my not so deep
pockets, shallower, I decided on my sleep easy investing philosophy. I cured myself of fidgety Buy Sell fingers. Do you need a cure for fidgety Buy Sell fingers, and loss
of sleep? Try my sleep easy investing philosophy. It works.
9. When you realize that
physically, mentally, spiritually, or
emotionally, you are in a different place
How does the
same person who had a string of boyfriends, when she was younger, decide to live
life as a single?
How does the
same person who was an atheist for most
of her life, go to church almost every Sunday?
How does the
same person who could not skip a single
meal, become capable of eating once every 24 hours, if she chooses to?
All the
questions above are about me. And I can tell you the answer. The answer is by being in a different place.
I am in a
different place mentally and emotionally,
so I enjoy singlehood.
I am in a
different place spiritually, so I enjoy going
to church on Sundays.
I am in a
different place physically, so I can go 24 hours
without eating if I choose to.
It is a
wonderful thing to realize you are in a different
place physically, mentally, spiritually, or emotionally. It opens up your options.
Sit down and
write how you are in a different place
physically, mentally, spiritually, or emotionally, than you were 5 or 10 years ago. Read my post "The Element of Knowing How We Think Is Not How We Are Always Going to Think" for inspiration. Then think about the new options you have as a result of being in a different place. Enjoy the expanded choice you have.
10. When you hear the call
So many amazing
things happen because you “hear a
call”. St Augustine heard a call. My
post “What’s Next For You?” is
dedicated to the excitement of
people “hearing their call”.
I am called to
write a blog post every Sunday.
I was called to
do the Xactly Admin Course.
I was called to
become a Commissions Consultant.
I was called to
learn to meditate.
What is life
calling you to do?
11. If you are running out of time
I have become
more and more aware of how precious
life is, with each passing year, and it makes
me focus on the things that really matter to
me.
It has led me
to stop doing things just because I have “always
been doing them.”
It has led me
to stop stewing about unnecessary things.
Don’t waste the
time you’ve been given.
Don’t waste the
time you’ve been given with your
children. Before you know it, they will be grown
up and gone, and you will get very little of
their time.
Don’t waste the
time you’ve been given with your
family, your friends, your partner.
Before you know it, that time
will be gone.
Time is
something we can never get back.
I have written 2
fiction posts which are fun to read and
may trigger something in you in connection
with the fact “time is running out”.
The Day The New Ruj Das Began tells you about a
successful sibling who realizes she has been a jerk
to her mom, her sister, her husband and her kids,
even if she has been generous with money.
The Ticking Clock Association tells you about a guy
who dies prematurely, and comes up with an
idea to make sure his buddies live more meaningful
lives than he did, while they still have time.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
How often should you revisit your desires, dreams, and choices? I've come up with 11 valid occasions when you should seriously consider doing so. I hope one, or all of them, will resonate with you
strongly enough, that you make some changes, and put yourself
on a different path for the rest of your life. Make the
rest of your life better than the
life already behind you - no matter how good that life was.
Acknowledgements
NEXT, Thanks to all readers, current and future, for sharing my Journey to Wisdom, Meaning and a Better Life. Like you, I am trying to find my way through this complex maze we call life, and I am honored to have you share my journey, as I continue to seek the wisdom hidden in plain sight.
FINALLY, A Happy Birthday shout-out: to those with February birthdays. Hope you use your birthday month - a milestone event - to revisit your dreams, desires, and choices - for the better, no actually, for the best.
P.S. Not sure if you have time, but if you do, you may enjoy these other posts:
Friendships
The United States of Friendship – Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6,Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12
Family
Pets
Nature
Hobbies
Managing Your Money
Simplifying Your Life
Getting Over Your Self-Consciousness
Learning to Laugh
How To Deal With The Sheldon Coopers in Your Life – Part 1, Part 2, Part 3,Part 4, The Nightdress Brigade, You Aced the SAT, How About the LAT?, How To Cause Atmost Confuzen at the Scripps Spelling Bee, How To Go From Madonna to Lilly to Myrtle in The Course of A Single Evening - And Even Have a Sex Change, A Facebook Face-Off, A Short Stint in Advertising
Learning to Relax
Health
Pursuing A Dream
Changing in Good Ways
