Imagine if you will for a moment that you get to start over.
You wake up tomorrow and you get to re-invent yourself. What would you do and where would you live? You are still you, same body and same mind but you get to design your life. Where would you choose to live? What new career would you think about doing? How would you change your diet and exercise program? What would you change about your yourself?
Sit down with a blank piece of paper and write down what you would like your life to look like. Don’t think in terms of money. Think about how you want to live your life. The type of person you want to be. Your character and purpose. Lets make up a theoretical person. He wants to be fit and strong. He wants to practice meditation daily, write children’s adventure books for a living, live near the beach and surf every weekend. Nothing too complicated. He wants to live a simple, healthy, purposeful life doing something he loves. Probably much the same principles as we all have.
So our theoretical person currently does not bother to exercise and eats junk food. He does not know how to meditate, lives in a city and works as a debt collector for a law firm. It’s pretty obvious isn’t. He can start by getting up earlier and hitting the gym. Give up the junk food and attend meditation classes. Give up his cable TV subscription and spend his evenings writing. You can see where this is going. It might take a while but a couple of years down the line he is strong and fit. He has finished his first book and is in the process of getting it published. He meditates regularly and took a beach holiday where he signed up for surfing lessons. Now his life looks a whole lot more like the one on paper than the one he used to live.
How does it feel for you to have this blank piece of paper? Does it feel scary? Does it feel exciting? Does it look anything like the life you live? If it does not look anything like the life you live now then what on earth are you doing? Seriously! Yes I know you have to put a roof over your head and food on the table but….you can start by writing down what that life looks like and then start inventing it one day at a time.
You have this amazing opportunity here on earth in this life you are living. Why would you not be living it the way you want? What is stopping you being the person you want to be? It might take a while and it might take a lot of hard work but the rewards will be unimaginable and it is never too late.
nikivanvelden 
Wow! Profound! But thoughts of some other life imply a tad dissatisfaction with things you may have done in this, or maybe left undone? Surely time spent looking back is time wasted? Nevertheless, Yours Truly took far too long to learn humility, having had the rough edges of my character knocked off by bolder, better women and men. You are a better person, Niki, your talent speaks for you and your give of it boldly. Talentless I couldn’t give back anything without first having endured my fair share of pain and shame. Now before some unseen hand turns over the hour-glass, I am able to focus on what really matters and your thoughts are provoking. Thank You Niki…
The point, as I see it Peter, is that through our storms we find our greatest growth…it is where we evolve. The greater the storm, the greater the growth. In that growth we become better people and part of being a better person is to give back. It’s not a case of looking back. What we learn both in our storms and in the quiet moments of sunshine should be shared. We are all only here for the human connection. That is the greatest part of being here in human form. Reaching out, be it through words, or photographs, is my way of giving back.