My Goals for 2013
I’m a bit late posting my goals for 2013, but this holiday to Ireland has really put me into a reflective mood. Over the last three weeks I’ve walked over 200 km, and this has provided me with a wonderful opportunity to get things into perspective. I’m making significant progress with my approach to living. There has been a radical overhaul in my way of thinking about things, and I’m excited about what this will mean for my future. I’ve discovered a path to inner peace that works for me – something that I’ve been searching for all of my life but always looking in the wrong places.
My Guidebook for Living
I’ve talked about this before on here, but I’m in the process of writing my guidebook for living. This is a book for me and written by me. It is going to be my bible going forward in life – although I won’t be writing anything in stone. This book is going to contain my manifesto for living, and I’m going to use it to guide me in the future. It will be sort of like my version of the Lonely Planet, and I’ll be constantly dipping into it in response to the ups and downs that are sure to come.
All the wisdom in my guidebook for living has been gained through my own personal experience, and I will not allow anything inside it that might be considered fluff. I also have no interest in quoting the great teachers and prophets. I’ve found that knowledge and wise sayings have their place, but they are practically useless to me until I’ve gained the experience that proves to me that they are undeniably true. My blueprint for living is based on two important assumptions:
* My life has a real purpose and so does the universe.
* Life is an impenetrable mystery, but this is what makes it so wonderful – anything is possible. It is reasonable for me to create my own guidebook for living because it is the process of being alive that is the greatest teacher.
I am writing this guidebook for me, and I’m not sure if I’ll ever show it to anyone else. Maybe we would all be better if we wrote our own guidebook. I am convinced that by mastering my own life, it will put me in a better position to help other people. Most of my suffering so far in my journey has been due to self obsession, so helping other people has to play an important part in my future. I did consider returning to a career in nursing (I’m a qualified nurse), but I still believe that it will be possible for me to help people in other ways. Ultimately I want to spend more time counselling those who are dealing with addiction and other life problems.
My Goals for 2013
My goal for 2013 is to complete the core of my guidebook for living. It will never really be fully complete as I’ll adapt it to any future changes in my thinking. In a post a couple of weeks ago I listed my ten commandments, and I had hoped that these would form the basis of my blueprint for living, but my thinking has moved on since then. I can see that at least some of these rules are too vague and muddled. It is going to take a good deal of work to create something that will deserve the title of my handbook to life. When it is complete though, it will be my ultimate achievement in regards to my own personal development as a human.
I’m tantalizingly close to finding my own inner peace and this will put me in a better position to help others. There are already too many of us trying to help other people even though we are still not right in our own skin – a case of ‘do as I say and not as I do’. I want to guide other humans to a more fulfilling way of living because this is what I’ve achieved. I find it absurd that those of us who have not achieved real contentment in our own life should be advising other people on how to do this.
Last year I had a long list of goals that I wanted to achieve in 2012, but I don’t feel the need to do this now. I know that I’m back on track, and that life is going to take me where I need to go – this means that I can just enjoy the ride without trying to control things too much.
I have been concerned about my son’s future, and whether it would be better for him to grow up in Thailand or Ireland. I’ve had a great time back home in Dublin, it was so nice to spend time with my family here, but it still feels as if Thailand is the right place for us. I’m certainly not ruling the option of returning to Ireland out completely, but it is unlikely to occur in the immediate future. The wonderful thing about life though, is that you never know where it is going to take you next.
Happy (Belated) New Year Everyone!
