Create the life of my dreams

This goal goes into the same category as Eliminate limiting beliefs did – I can’t say I’ve completed the idea I had behind it when I created it almost a year ago, but my priorities and thinking have changed too much since then for it to still resonate with me. I agree with (almost) everything I’ve written under this goal and I’m still aiming to do many of the things I’ve mentioned in the entries, but I feel like it’s time for this goal to go.

With the exception of days I feel intolerably sick (which has been often lately), the dominant feeling I’ve is that I already have everything. I certainly don’t feel like I’ve accomplished everything I want in life – that couldn’t be farther from the truth – and my physical reality for sure isn’t that of my wildest dreams. Yet, for this present moment, I most of the time feel like I’ve everything I truly need. Everything is perfect as it is and there’s nothing to add. Again, with the exception of times I feel intolerably awful physically, I feel like I don’t need to accomplish anything to be happy and fulfilled because I already am. That doesn’t mean I don’t want anything to change or that I don’t have goals anymore; it simply means that I’m not seeking happiness in external situations or happenings anymore. I always, no matter what happens, have everything I need, and nothing needs to happen or change to make me happy because I already am.

I’m still very much aiming to create the life of my dreams and hope to write some kind of a success story under this goal one day, but for now, I’m simply enjoying what I have already.

_{(Idea stolen from naladka)}

How I see myself and my life in 5 years in 5 words:

1. Health
2. Travel
3. Adventure
4. Connection
5. Growth

My current vision of the life of my dreams:

During 2011-2012: travel around Spain for six months on minimum, find a city I love and move there

During 2012-2013: backpack around Central and South America for 6-12 months on minimum, maybe live there for a while before returning to Spain

I guess you could say it’s pretty heavy on the travel plans :-)

In February I wrote how it is difficult to let go off things I used to find extremely important but don’t quite anymore. It’s funny how that was difficult for me just a few months ago; nowadays I couldn’t care less of my old plans and my old identity based on what I did and what I planned to do. It’s funny to think that I really wanted to be a doctor as I now can’t come up with anything I’d be less interested in being. I’m still interested in improving others’ health, but I don’t think being a doctor would be the best way for me to do that. Modern Western medicine still interests me, but it doesn’t fascinate me anymore. It often doesn’t tell how to get healthy – most of the time it only treats the disease and its symptoms but doesn’t heal them. It’s a study of sickness, not health. I don’t want to be part of it.

I’ve also learned to live with uncertainty, even embrace it. Being uncertain even helps me to stay focused on the present moment instead of dwelling in the future, thus actually allowing me to enjoy the present moment much more. I don’t mind not having a long-term plan for my life anymore. I’m okay with the fact that right now I feel like I want to take a year (or more) off just to travel and meet new people; I don’t need to know yet what comes after that. I’ve changed so much that it’s probably wise to take some time to figure out the next direction and that is fine – I’m not in a hurry. I just can’t take life that seriously anymore :)

It’s weird to think that it wasn’t so long ago I was a Hermione-like studying-and-career-and-everything-that-looks-good-on-paper-is-a-priority kind of a perfectionist who couldn’t cope without solid, well thought out long-term plans. I guess the reasons why I don’t feel the need to be like that anymore are

1.) I’ve realised better than before that nobody has promised I’ll be alive tomorrow. It’s not that you shouldn’t have any long-term plans – I do have them too, just not plans of the same kind as I used to – but at the same time I feel that if there’s something I honestly want to do, the right time to do it is as soon as possible, preferably NOW. The timing will never be perfect, and if I postpone something I truly want to do (like travelling) because I want to graduate etc. first (not to mention retire…), I might be dead before I get to do it.

2.) I identify less with my plans, interests, and my mind in general. I don’t need “outer” things to tell me who I am, to give me an identity. This is a huge change and also a great one – it makes life so much easier and much less painful. I don’t identify with my beliefs and opinions so much anymore either, which is extremely relieving as I don’t most of the time feel any need to be “right” or defend my views. It’s so liberating… even when I’m quite sure I’m right, it’s just not important to defend my views anymore. Truth is truth, and it doesn’t need defending. It was my identity based on what I believed that needed it.

This is off-topic (although on the other hand is there anything that’d be off-topic when it comes to figuring out what I want and then getting it?), but not identifying with the things I mentioned has also helped me in getting to better health. I don’t hold on to this sad story of having an incurable health problem anymore. Most of the time, I’ve no complaints about anything, even when I truly feel really sick. I just accept it as if I had chosen it. I don’t identify with being sick at all anymore and health issues are simply something I have now, not something I am. Yes, I do have a primary immunodeficiency, but I’m not an immunodeficiency patient anymore.

Now, while I do believe that our thoughts affect our health to a certain degree, this isn’t about law of attraction or anything like that – it’s about the fact that our thoughts affect our actions. It’s been interesting to realise that what we strongly identify with, we don’t truly want to get rid of because it’d mean the loss of who we are, the loss of identity. It’d mean we would, in a way, die. If someone’s identity is strongly based on sickness, “I’m a sufferer of X”, is it likely that he/she will get healthy? I personally think that it is not, even though that person would consciously think they’re trying their everything to get better. Of course it has a lot to do with beliefs as well; a person who does not believe he/she can get healthy acts differently than a person who is absolutely sure he/she can figure out a cure. So far, I haven’t yet seen even one person who didn’t believe they can cure themselves to get rid of their chronic illnesses. It’s the people who believe they’ve the power to cure themselves and who take the responsibility for their health that manage to do it.

I’ve never identified with my health issues strongly, however I’ve now found out that I did let them be a part of who I was and I’m glad I don’t do that anymore. I’ve found that most of the psychological pain that came from being sick didn’t come from the situation itself but my story about it and my identification with my past. Now that I don’t hold on to it anymore, I find that even when things are going badly, I experience no psychological pain. I also take slightly different actions which I believe will be the reason why I’m going to cure myself from something that should be impossible to cure.

—

I guess I’ve stopped resisting change and holding on to the person I used to be, leaving room for the person I’m now and wish to become.

_{What a weird post. It’s like I’ve thrown up all thoughts that came to my mind into this entry :D}

I’ve already noticed the difference between asking myself “What do I want?” and “What would I want if everything was possible?” (the latter giving me more accurate information), but I discovered today that adding “What kind of future feels best to me if I were to experience it right now?” in the mix gives me even more information. It perhaps doesn’t add much new, but it certainly confirms that my answers to the “What would I want if everything was possible?” question were true.

At first sight, it didn’t seem like an important question. I was sure the answers would be the same as they’ve been when I’ve asked myself what I want my future to be like in general. However, the “if I were to experience it right now” part turned out, as these little adds usually do, to really change the answers. “What kind of future feels best to me?” seems to give me inaccurate answers most of the time – they’re often something I think I should want, or something I really did want in the past, but don’t quite anymore. I wouldn’t get excited about the idea of having those things in my life “right now”, even though they might seem like something worth having when I think about achieving them in the future.

“What kind of future feels best to me if I were to experience it right now?” seems to give me things I think I should not want, at least not prefer over the things I “should” want, perhaps because of social conditioning or my own judgement or other nonsense. Funny how mind works. (These things coming up aren’t anything terrible, just not necessarily something that’d look good on paper for my perfectionist self to view. For example, I’d love to take a year off just to travel, perhaps to backpack through Central and South America. In all honesty, I’m not even sure anymore if I want to go to med school, and I know if I decide not to go at all many people will be disappointed in me. I’m just not sure if I want to be a doctor anymore. I think that when I’m finally healthy, I want to take a big break from everything illness related.)

Truly the only real limits my life has are the limits I’ve made for it. I guess it’s high time I let those limits go.

I’ve been playing with the idea of thinking my life as a story or a video game. Or a dream, in which everything is possible. To my surprise it’s been quite an eye opening experience because suddenly I’ve been realising there are quite a few things I really want I didn’t even know I wanted, and realising that the things I thought I wanted aren’t really what I want. Heh. I think deep inside I probably knew all of this all along, but I didn’t think some things were possible for me for one reason or another, so I denied I wanted them, and tried to believe I actually wanted something else. Stupid, I know.

Instead of asking myself “What do I want?”, I’ve been asking “What would I want if everything was possible?” That might seem like a tiny, not-very-important detail to add but at least in my experience it has completely changed some of the answers. It’s also been interesting to think my life as a story (in which everything is of course possible because a writer has no other limits but his/her imagination) and ask myself what I’d like to happen next in the story of my life. What will be the next scene? How will the plot develop? What kind of characters do I want to add in the mix, and are there characters I should completely remove from the story? If I do X, will it make a great plot twist, or would doing Y or Z make the story more interesting? For example, I don’t think playing it safe and not taking any risks would make a very interesting story. I know that if it were a novel, I most likely wouldn’t want to read it. But mixing some planning, intelligent risk taking, living in the moment and following one’s dreams? I’d prefer that kind of a plot any day over the safe one!

Thinking my life as a video game has also been interesting. When I play, I’m not worried about failing, for example, even though I would be worried about it if the same situation came up in real life. In game I find it easy to understand that making mistakes is part of the learning process and that there’s nothing wrong trying, failing, trying, failing, and then succeeding. Trial and error is many times a good tool to solve problems. Usually there’s no way I could be really good at the game right from the start – and if I were, what would even be the point of playing? Learning and getting gradually better is such a huge part of enjoying the game, at least for me. Make it too easy and I get bored.

Now… what if I could bring this attitude to real life? Without thinking and worrying too much beforehand, I could just try different things and see what works and what doesn’t. I’d use trial and error as a problem solving tool a lot more and I think it would most of the time work better than my “I have to find the perfect solution without failing even once” method I often use. I’d enjoy being a beginner at something and perhaps I’d even make it a fun game for myself instead of worrying about looking like a fool. I wouldn’t take stupid risks, but if there wasn’t anything to lose (or the worst possible outcome wasn’t that bad), I’d grab the opportunity with both hands. With this kind of an attitude, I think I’d very rarely feel fear. Excitement yes, but fear, no.

I’m going to try to put these two things (thinking my life as a story and a video game) into action during this year. I might even write some kind of a plot summary for the next few big scenes in the story of my life. I think curing incurable diseases and genetic problems, moving abroad, travelling alone, facing fears, living in the moment, meeting a lot of new fascinating people, possibly falling in love, getting over my shyness etc. will make quite an interesting year!

EDIT: This goal used to be called “Make 2011 my best year yet” but I wanted to expand it so it’s now called “Create the life of my dreams”. I doubt I’ll be able to accomplish this during 2011 but I’m working on it and trying to have the best day ever every day :)