I'm cleaning out boxes to move. (Eight years of stuff is NOT coming with me!) Found a journal from exactly 10 years ago. The start of my career change.
Ken, who I met at the Center for Creative Leadership, had sent me this image saying that he could picture me just like this when I was 50. I liked it, kept it. Made a dream list from it. (I'm just the kind of person to keep such lists.)
Glad I found it now, when there is still time to remind me who I wanted to become. No, I'm not 50 yet!!! The key points, condensed:
When I am 50...
- I live creatively, enthusiastically and with healthy humor.
- I approach life's challenges directly with calm strength, courage. I trust my intuition. I have gained maturity.
- I am an entrepreneur & a writer who helps people and their ideas grow.
- I love a man with depth, passion and a common sense of purpose.
- I contribute to the community in which I live.
- I live actively in mind, body and spirit.
- I live simply and appreciatively in the moment.
- I have followed my own voice with the crazy enthusiastic ("god heard from within") ideas.
I didn't think I was any of those things back then, which is why I wrote the list. I needed to change. And this woman to me looked like she was someone I would respect and be proud of. It gave me courage to look to her as a symbol.
I cannot say I've fulfilled all of these desires, but I can say I've tried. I think it mattered that I wrote and dreamed.
Plus, someone I met thought to send me this image. And inspired me to see something new in my potential in that moment. (And yes, I'm a woman, of course he could have had a lot of motives...smile.) Yet I think I will start sending images as inspiration boosters, too. You never know when it may really make a difference.