We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers.- Carl Sagan
Fill in the blank: Before I die I want to __________________.
This has proven more difficult to answer than I first thought. It’s not that I don’t think. I do, often too much. And it’s not that I don’t think I’m going to die. I know it is a certainty. I have forgotten how to want; or at the very least, I’ve forgotten how to commit to my wants. I worry that I’ll want something, and then someday maybe I won’t. I have to give myself permission to want, but more importantly, I have to accept that it’s okay to want and to not receive, at least sometimes. I have missed out on some truly wonderful things and people because of my fear. While I can’t change the past, I can guide the future. I need to find courage in my questions and I think the depth of my answers will naturally follow.
November 6, 2013
Just yesterday someone asked me what I would suggest for a teacher’s birthday….the only things I could think of was things for my classroom. I told her that it’s hard to remember that it’s okay to want things for myself!
November 6, 2013
There are things I wanted when I was younger that I no longer want…as life goes on you see things with new (older, experienced) eyes. I love that picture! There was a board like that up at Salisbury Beach this summer…I took a pic of Ralphie writing on it 🙂
November 6, 2013
So very true, Janet. I used to see wanting different things as negative, but now I see it as growth. 🙂
November 25, 2013
I read this a while ago. And I get this in a deep way. I learned to never have expectations.I know how subtle and sometimes fleeting it is to find a need or desire. To open to desires and allow them and let them be, become. Thank you for the reminder, again.
November 25, 2013
Before I die I want to: live.
November 25, 2013
I think “to live” is the best answer. Learning just what that means to each one of us is the challenge.
November 25, 2013
Last year this time I thought I was on borrowed time. I was waiting for some test results and while I was waiting I thought of all the things that I wanted to do and I may never do them. I wanted to sail the Maine coast and I wanted to travel out west,
Hopefully this summer I will take maybe not the Maine trip but a sailing trip out to Marta’s Vineyard and Nantucket.
November 26, 2013
Diana, I hope you do take that sailing trip. I’m envious. That tells me that I need to schedule a little sailing trip of my own.
December 17, 2013
I have the hardest time articulating what I want. Not just in the small ways – I can easily express my desire for a cheeseburger – but for the big stuff, the life-changing stuff. Maybe I don’t like the vulnerability involved in putting the wish out there, or maybe I still feel guilty expressing something so self-centered. Either way, I want to get better at this.
December 22, 2013
I have trouble asking for the big things too. I think we’re taught that it’s wrong, greedy, or shellfish to ask for what we need.