What's Interferring With Your Dreams?

What is really interfering with my ability to reach my goals?

I decided to take a day off from everything yesterday, and everything for me means, no packing, no selling stuff, no computer (except my journal & blog), no emails, no FB, no nothing that had to do with anything, especially computer. Although even when I make this effort thoughts still creep in and so wherever you go there you are, but I did my best to push them out, just for a day.

So my sister and I were walking down by the river collecting glass and listening to the water smash against the rippled shoreline. We searched the sky for blue herons and talked about life. I decided to rest my back against a fallen tree trunk and, "take in the day", while my sister continued walking, collecting and no doubt thinking. She and I we are always thinking and the thinking becomes a form of interference. We think and don't act, or act out of necessity, because none of it is focused. A lot of it is fantasy and much of it is mind clutter. What must I get done today? She finds pleasure in constant movement. I find pleasure in rest. I am leaning, sitting, watching, thinking. She is moving, collecting, looking, thinking. Neither of us ever truly relaxed. So I begin to allow myself to go to that happy place in my mind. I put my attention on the external. I see the sun penetrate and reflect into the black depths of the river. There is a back drop of green in my periphery. I allow the voice of nature to engulf me, the birds, that annoying squirrel, the tide crashing in, pulling out. I see myself as if inside a computer generated world, my senses peeked, the majesty enlivening. My imagination begins to churn. I close my eyes and breathe.

My sister's voice is carried to me by the wind and I hear it say, "Do you want a hot dog?", frankly the last statement I would expect in the middle of nowhere and I look over at her. She is pointing and laughing at a, get ready for it . . . Hot Dog boat emerging just into our view from the north. What? How do they serve you? Do they pull up to shore or do we have to swim out? The big, red hot dog sign strikes us as hilarious and we begin to wonder what made them think of it. We begin to think about the ease of living a Hot Dog boat vendors life. We wonder, was that their life goal or did they do it for the money? Are they retired or do they just love selling hot dogs? Did they combine their love of hot dogs and their love of water? We decide we might sell everything and get a boat to sell hot dogs! The ease, the joy, the simplicity!

Yes! The simplicity! So I ask her, if she could do anything in this world, if she was handed a magic box that could provide her with any career slash life path that she desired what would she choose to do? We were all given a magic box like that, a set of magic tools and the key is to put them together to follow our inner most desires, but I'm getting ahead of myself. So what would she do? She said she didn't know. Was the question too overwhelming? Had it been sprung on her to quickly? Had her desires been squashed early on in life, or was survival of the utmost importance?

I examined my own life. Noticing that inside I felt very much like the churning tide, or rather the debris caught up in it's motion. Always looking for a way to survive and never realizing I had a choice. Worshiping at the alter of the almighty buck instead of actualizing my dreams. And in that process I lost sight of my goals altogether. Whenever I had a plan I let obstacles get in the way and I let my real dreams fall by the wayside.

I'm about to change all of that. I am going to allow myself to really feel what it is that brings the most joy into my life, (even if that joy is selling hot dogs on the water), make a plan, post it and pursue that as a way to live instead of the other way around. When distractions present themselves, as I know they will, I am going to ask myself if pursuing them will bring me closer to my goal or the opposite and I will let the answer be my guide. Because the only real obstacle interfering with my ability to reach my goals is me. Me without a clear vision, me without a solid plan, me without trust and faith in a life without limits that is filled with peace, love and happiness.