No Excuses

As a continually evolving spiritually-connected (most of the time) person on this revolving door planet, I look for ways to mark my personal growth, my progression (most of the time) to a higher level of being. Meaning, trying to BE. Not Buy. Not Better. But Be. As I once read--we are human Be-ings, not human Do-ings, and if you've never pondered the difference, believe me, there is one.

Which brings me to my latest challenge. The Vision Board.
Last year, it was the gratitude list, which, painfully shy-ly, I created and posted on this very blog. Now, this year, I do the same with my vision board. I offer it to you, as a learning tool, as a thought-provocation, all the things this blog does. (those 2 things pretty well sum it up).

In the last three posts, I referenced honouring the past, and then breaking a pattern, and now I give a nod to The Future. In the words of my hero-rock-star lyricist, Simon LeBon, the future to me, is 'like an old friend--ever expected but never knocking'. We intellectually know it's coming, but we often pretend that planning for it, asking for things, dreaming as an adult, is sure to send the evil eye swivelling our way, sure to doom us.

I don't assume the future--I ask for it, pray for it, the same way every one else does, by living each day.
Here is my Vision Board, in all its naive, glossy glory, in all its fonted, type-bite format.

The first thing I noticed was that for all its vision, my board was very
text-based, odd for a pastime associated with envisioning the future; instead, I seem to have created a set of instructions to follow.
My lists of reasons not to not exercise can apply to anything in life really; ' I don't have the time' (yep); 'I can't afford it' (ditto);
'It's too far' (again, right); 'I have to ask my husband' (many women struggle with this part of their lives); and 'I have to think about it'.
Wow. This list of excuses sums up my whole vision board. I'm trying to remind myself, with these images, this text, to stop overthinking it all and just jump into it.
The seascape, the green-blue water, the green-blue book spines, these are images I relate to, that feed my curiosity for what lies...ahead...beyond.
The bright yellow raincoat, the bright yellow watch, the bright green bag--all hopeful colours. Necessary items, but the necessary in life can also be inventive.
The Eiffel towers remind me there are lots of places I have yet to visit. The books again remind me I still have lots left to read, to learn. The images, iconic, if you will, of some of the women on my board, seem a bit stereotypical, type-cast. But then, although I identify myself as a modern woman, I am also, and I don't often admit this--VERY traditional. In ways that I think about the world--the value of my privacy, the strength of a well-guarded secret, the power of the unknown. The images of women in traditional dress hold enduring power for me. If the women of the past could do all that they did with what tools they had, then, when it comes right down to it then....

There are no excuses.