This Year's Dedication

There are only two ways to live your life.

One is as though nothing is a miracle.

The other is as if everything is.

Albert Einstein

I wrote in a thank you card: I am dedicating 2009 and making it the Year of Thriving!

As a part of this, I am beginning the New Year by focusing on miracles. I am going to be reading A Course in Miracles while also asking myself: What are the miracles I would like to experience in 2009?

• I would love to have some success in my vocation this year.
• I will lose the weight I gained after I came down with vertigo.
• I want to find new circles of friends to add flavor to my life.
• I desire a deeper spiritual practice.
• My daily disciplines will include meditation, exercise, and making healthy choices for myself.

These are the big miracles. The smaller ones are here with me each and every day. The way I am greeted by my dogs in the morning. The I love you’s I receive from my family and friends. The miraculous turning point at which each exhale becomes an inhale.

It’s all here, in this moment, the miraculous and mundane. Such is life.

The Dream You Live

One person working toward a dream is worth 99 people just working.—Lani Kraus

I used to conduct a social experiment with my married friends, the ones who had children and were relatively happy with their lives even though they had health or financial concerns or other daily issues that many of us face to one degree or another.

Inevitably, when I would ask these women “What do you want for you life?” they would say they wanted:

Their spouse to get a promotion/raise/business success.
To have their children do well in school.
To see their children grown and happy.

Never, not once, did I hear an answer to my question. I didn’t ask my friends what they wanted for their husbands and/or their children. I asked them what they wanted for themselves. So I would say, “I asked you want you wanted for YOUR life. So what do you want?”

They would look at me with a blank stare, unable to express even a single selfish wish for themselves.

So many people right now are facing the fear of layoffs, unemployment, and struggling in an economy where banks, newspapers, and even entire nations are declaring bankruptcy and shutting down.

I am trying to focus on this time in our world as a shift in opportunity. With the financial rug ripped out from beneath our feet, we are all free falling into something new. Now is a time to assess and consider the gifts we each have, to consider our heart’s true and deepest desire, and how we might best live out our calling.

Now, as the year closes, is a perfect time to sit down with a pen and paper and think about your natural talents and how they can best serve yourself, your family, and your community. Begin here, now, to taste the sweetness of living within your calling and embracing your essential self. Start small and allow new opportunities to respond to your openness for bigger ways to find your fulfillment. Yes, it is a scary time. It is also a time of wondrous opportunity.

It’s also not a bad idea to go ahead and update the résumé, just in case.