Living The Making A Difference Lifestyle
December 2, 2007 | In Making A Diff. Lifestyle |
Do you remember what you wanted to be when you grew up? Do you look back on your life now and wonder what happened to those dreams?
Photo by Grahambones
I do; I didn’t dream of becoming an insurance agent - although I did.
In sixth grade I dreamed of being a French Teacher. I was all set to introduce kids to a new and exotic language. By ninth grade, I dreamed of being a landscape architect. But, instead of sculpting gardens, I would design and build natural habitats for zoos. By High School graduation, I dreamed of being a sail trainer teaching others how to sail tall ships and about marine life. College brought dreams of being a marine biologist - the next Jacques Cousteau. And alongside the dreams were hundreds of volunteer hours at a local hospital and a Girl Scout project holding a community recycling day.
Real Life Sets In
Then, somewhere along the way, dreams stayed dreams and real life became the day to day. Bills needed to be paid, grad school didn’t seem realistic, and friends shifted. I became an insurance agent, an aunt, and a wife. Life moved on, but my dreams stayed still.
However, they didn’t die. They lived on, through books on sailing and books on biology. They lived on through efforts to recycle at home and at work, through pets adopted from shelters, and through changes in jobs. My dreams didn’t die completely, although sometimes they were silent.
Are your dreams dead? Or are they quietly waiting for the right moment - the moment when you realize you’ve had enough of pushing them aside and are ready to live them? Recently, the right moment came for me and I started the journey from an occasional contributor to a full time activist.
Journey To Activism
What I’ve laid out in the following series of articles is a rough itinerary for that journey. I’ve traveled partway down the road, and will share my thoughts on where I’ve been. Some destinations are still ahead, but all stops I believe are important. I look forward to sharing them with you.
I invite you to join me on the two legs of this journey. The first leg is understanding ourselves and knowing our strengths so we can create the “us” we will share with the world. The second leg is then presenting ourselves to the world and and truly living the lifestyle of making a difference.
First Leg - Understanding Ourselves:
Creating Our Self Definition
Only We Have The Power To Change Ourselves
Choosing Our Support Carefully
Let Giving - Not Money - Motivate You
Second Leg - Presenting Ourselves To The World:
Personal Branding
Work Space Decoration - Show Your Activist Side
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Links to related topics: Connecting With Others, Making a Diff. Lifestyle, Personal Branding, Presenting Ourselves, Self Definition, Self Expression, Understanding Ourselves
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[...] I mentioned in Living The Making A Difference Lifestyle, I’ve dreamed of being an activist for a long time. One of the considerations that held me back [...]