Craft Your Life

Sometimes I think we give too much credit to the work and not the belief behind the work. We’ve all been collectively schooled to appreciate the value of hard work and logically conclude that he who does the most work ultimately wins. Is that true? Is our expectation of life such that the only valuable commodity is work? The rest an unnecessary byproduct. And when do you finally get to sit down after all those years of hard work? In your beautiful home I imagine right on the beach, but you aint got as much time left to really appreciate it. Instead it seems more plausible that there is a delicate balance, a dance that must be mastered, leading to an enjoyment of the whole thing. It’s an understanding of the power composite in belief. It’s like working hard but getting there so much faster. It’s discovering the grand balance in life where one action causes a reaction and on beautifully it continues forever. It is vividly picturing your ideal life and clinging to that image until it is your reality. Not without any work no doubt, but not the work that reduces a man and wears out a woman. It is the delicate but gentle crafting of one’s own existence by deciding tomorrow today.

All of nature follows a distinct but multifarious pattern. There is a harmony already built in. Nothing is disjointed or without purpose. Both the winding brook and sprawling tree teach us the value of things and a love and appreciation for the same. Were we to work only and exclusively, would we not miss the show? Wouldn’t we have missed one of the subtle joys found in a flower unveiled or the rush of the autumn trees? This life was not intended to be without joy. Most of this over reaching concept of work has been devised by other men that need you to do their work for them. But, we all sort of bought the story and many are still buying it ever striving, never arriving. Working to exhaustion yet scraping along still. There is access to a better Power always willing to act in accordance with that which you can believe. There’s an ever present gentle urging always towards what is best and what to enjoy and how to be at peace. And the offer? That you, my friend, have the privilege of being able to craft your own life. Life does not choose for you, though it may seem that way at times. Instead you do the choosing, have always done the choosing and will continue to do the choosing. The question that begs being, what are you choosing? How is it always about what you can’t have? Why is the narrative that some folks are blessed and some folks are not? Seems you might be deciding just how many blessings you will get and sadly, not enough. Here you are playing a backup role in your own life waiting for the Director to give you a more prominent role. Meanwhile everything that is, is waiting on you. Seems the real work to do focuses more on your beliefs than the actual labor you provide.  I wonder why? Because there is a lot more to life than work. There are people to love who require your time. There are magnificent sights to behold with time sufficient to properly behold them. There is this fantastic human playground packed with lessons and truth and joy and wisdom that you will never quite find while you are so busy questing, striving, earning. Craft your life. Don’t work for it.

For all those creatives out there, the dreamers, the idea lovers, the sages, those sent to make the world a better place, of which I’m a card carrying member, this is the almost ultimate creativity. Almost… You have the privilege to craft your own life. You can make it as beautiful as you can imagine. You can surround yourself with love and be that beacon for other people. When you were young, you dreamed beyond yourself, that is until the world got ahold of you as well. You imagined your future life and for the most part made great pictures. They were replete with the things you loved most and you actually chose them yourself. Then one by one you turned them all over to someone else because you had to get to work. There was no time left for this silly fantasy dreaming. The real world was calling. Flash forward a few years and it appears time might have run out on this life crafting. What was true then is still true now, you just dozed off for a little bit. You got a little distracted. If you’re still breathing (RIP Curtis) there’s still time. You just have to learn how to put some things into your head that you want instead of all those things you do not want. Change your focus to what you want and see how quickly God helps you get there. Belief is powerful and explains all the differences in what folks have and do not have. Injustice and iniquity are no match for strong belief. Neither are the naysayers. We all have one glorious shot at this thing and it seems to make infinitely more sense to try and craft it than let it craft us or worse convince us to make poor choices for ourselves. You are doing the choosing. You have always done the choosing. Choose to craft your life instead.

Just some good thoughts…