Who needs United Airlines when you can walk on the clouds?
The fancy home overlooking the glistening turquoise sea.
A fulfilling work-life and entrepreneurial career. Planning glamor weddings or writing best-selling books. Managing that talked-about restaurant that caters to celebrities.
Boating cruises on the Riviera with that tall, dark-skinned French doctor of your dreams. Weekend getaways to Cannes, where the film festival makes the bottom of your weekend itinerary.
All right, all right.
Maybe not quite so glamorous but you know what you’ve always wanted; love, career, children, a lovely home, season-tickets to the Teatro alla Scala, tango dancing in Buenos Aires.
Just the basics.
You NEVER imagined you’d be here.
You thought all the pieces of the puzzle were to fall together and your life would unfold as you had desired. Life would be a comforting journey on the ‘It’s a Small World’ ride at Disneyland where you floated around on teacups visiting exotic countries around the world.
Instead, you’ve found it to be like a scary life-or-death, hair-frazzling roller coaster ride leaving you breathless, disjointed and baffled.
What happened to that fairy-tale life you were promised as a kid?
What happened to the life-dreams you had so meticulously imagined in your day-dreams?
Is your dream job more elusive than ever?
Is your career at a dead-end?
The hunk of a guy you’re dating: more punk than hunk?
Your life didn’t quite turn out the way you imagined. Instead of flying, you feel like you’re scuba diving. Scuba diving without an oxygen tank. Ok, feels like you’re drowning.
Did your life turn out the way you wanted?
Why did you get left behind?
Why is everyone else moving ahead?
Why is everyone else’s life falling into place like a 10-piece jigsaw puzzle when your 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle is scattered across three rooms, missing 150 pieces and is hardly recognizable?
The life I wanted seems so distant.
When I completed my law degree, I spent several years of my life as a courtroom lawyer but was never a fan of the practice. Instead of sticking with law, moving up the partnership track and getting paid!! ($$) I’ve jumped out of law practice all together. It didn’t fit my soul, personality or interest so I bid it farewell. But it set me back a few years professionally.
I married at the age of 25. Like most who walk down the alter to wedded bliss, I wanted this marriage to last a lifetime. Forever. Happily ever after, as fairytales end. A long life together, happiness and children. But it didn’t work out that way. In fact, we married too young, learned we weren’t right for each other and and divorced much later than we should have.
Yup, life wasn’t what I had wanted it to be and the life I desired seemed obscure.
What next? What do you do after the sense of failure has pinned you against the wall? After the frustrations have set in and the tears have dried up?
Your journey back to your life starts with:
1) Resist your desire to compare yourself with others. You don’t know the 99 problems Jay-Z’s got. You don’t even know 99 problems your wealthy girlfriends, attractive exes or bff’s have. Life may appear grand on Facebook postings and idealistic on Christmas cards but you have no idea what deranged and lunatic people your friends and family are.
The more ideal their lives appears, the more likely you’re going to be reading about them in the tabloid papers or TMZ.
2) Let your life work out on its own pace. No two journeys are the same (except in prison where your daily routine, clothing, bedding and food options are the same.) We each have different lessons to learn and different experiences to have.
You need the setbacks, experiences and lessons learned to shine in the future.
3) Be grateful for who you are. You’re a divine being. You just forgot about that as you grew up and people around you told you otherwise. As a baby, you were coddled, petted and treated like a precious gem. As an adult, you’re now treated like Amanda Bynes or Justin Bieber on a bad day in court.
You’re not a disgraced pop star or reality tv wannabe. Be grateful for you. Be grateful for your talents, abilities, mind and consciousness. Be grateful for the gift you are to the world.
4) Be grateful for everything you’ve got. Yes, your flat screen tv. Your diplomas, master’s degrees, student loan payments and photo frames. Your Gucci sunglasses. Startucks coffee-cards, Nina Fern pumps, weekend spa retreats… Your 18 silk scarfs. Your 10-year-old Volkswagen Jetta which drives without protest or resistance. You’ve got food and friends to eat it with. You’ve got a job, however dead-end it might be.
Whatever you have, small or grand, be thankful for it. There are no downsides to a gratefulness practice.
5) Keep hope alive. “We must accept finite disappointment. But never lose infinite hope,” Martin Luther King, Jr.
Even if your life feels like it’s out of sync and far from the day-dreams you had growing up, never give up hope. The life you dreamed of may not be exactly as you had wanted but it will manifest in its own way. Huh?
What you want will manifest itself in a different form than you had expected.
You might have wanted children of your own,but for now you have nieces and nephews who you enjoy spending time with. They love your company, but they go home after, saving you your sanity and sleep.
You dreamt of being a financial advisor at a large New York stock brokerage. The good news is that when the market tanked, you didn’t have dozens of angry clients trying to break down your door. Instead of doing it professionally, you’re able to make smart investments for your family members who ask.
You didn’t make it into Hollywood but you’re teaching children how to act and making a difference in the lives of dozens of future actors.
Stay positive and hopeful that the universe will manifest your desires.
Any day.
It may not be exactly as you had wanted but what the Universe felt you needed.
6) Improve your mindset and raise your vibrations. You’re not going to read a personal development blog without hearing this advice, but it has to be said. Or you have to be reminded.
If you’re a highly negative person, this advice goes double for you.
If you believe positive thinking is a bunch of poppycock and wondering why there’s so much negativity in your life, you might have a problem.
Thinking positive thoughts is not going to mean a house in Beverly Hills and a fat movie contract. It WILL allow for more positive affairs (no, not that kind) to manifest in your life.
Also, hand in hand with positive thoughts are positive vibrations. How in the Universe do you raise your vibrations? My friend Evelyn has some thoughts.
7) Practice patience. Yeah. Wait.
Some people I know are doing this as a spiritual practice or using it for their word of the year in 2013. Life isn’t a fast food drive-thru or quick-delivery pizza: 30 minutes or it’s free.
Didn’t someone say the best things in life are worth waiting for? So wait a little longer and your many wants and desires might manifest in front of your eyes. And much more than you initially wanted or expected.
8) Clean your house. I’ve always found that prior to my external world improving, I’ve had to improve my internal world.
“Vishnu,” you’re asking, “did you just get back from a taping of Oprah?”
No, friends, I’ve experienced this.
When you’re a mess, your world is a mess. So, how do you improve your inside world?
Yoga, sure. Meditation, fine. Serious therapy and medication, ok. Standing upside down and chanting to the spirit Gods – whatever works, mate.
What do you need to deal with serious or even small emotional and psychological issues you’re facing? IF you’re thinking reading this blog is going to get you there, God help us all.
Get help.
9) Be open to the tidal waves of change and gifts coming your way. Yeah, sometimes life’s like Christmas except you won’t know what day Santa is going to break into your pad and shower you with every gift you’ve ever wanted.
In fact, your life may already be like Christmas morning and you’ve failed to take notice.
If you’re living the dream and still feel unfulfilled, go back up to the “gratefulness” parts of this post.
If your dreams and wants in life seem far and distant, then be ready to accept your desires unfolding. Don’t shut the door on the extremely attractive delivery man who delivers you a bouquet of flowers. (Oh, do make sure that flower delivery guy is delivering flowers as his part-time job and that he’s studying to be a dentist during the day)
Be open and observant of what’s happening in your life. Allow your life to manifest what you want in it.
Don’t take another step or leave this post without heading over to the comments section below. Give it to me straight – are you waiting for your life to start or pressing ahead and living it?