Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Introduction

I wanted to start this blog to share my life lessons with others, as well as learn from their experiences. Little by little, I'll be writing about where I came from in life and how I got to be where I am today and I would love to hear people's opinions about it as well as their own stories.

Let me start by saying that I'm 35 years old, but only recently I was able to finally discover who I am and my purpose in life. A lot happened, or should I say, NOT happened in my 20s and even though I learned from it, I still feel like I wasted that decade of my life.

Looking back, my lack of action or knowledge on how to act, pretty much shaped the person I am today. It seems like one event or one thing took me to another, pushed me to learn new things, sparkled my curiosity and here I am: a person more determined than ever and really close to make my dream become a reality. Today, I'm a completely different person and I can honestly say I like what I see in the mirror: someone strong, determined, very intelligent and that it won't take NO for an answer. Today, if there is a way, I find it. If not, I create one.

Sometimes I like to think or visualize actual things when I ponder about life's situations. I can cite several examples here, I'm gonna list one at a time in different posts, but one particular visualization that I always have is the following:
For a long time, I didn't know what to do with my life. And boy how horrible that feeling is! I'm sure a lot of people can relate. You wanna be able to change your life, but you have no ideia how to do it or what path to take. The story about how I was able to figure it out will come soon, but today, when I think back, I literally see this lonely dirt path extending itself in front of me.

I can't see the end of it. I see lots of trees around it, lots of hills and mountains and diversions. As I make the choice to follow it, I discover new things along the way. Sometimes beautiful scenery, others times, not so nice. Sometimes I come to a place where I have to make a choice. Go right, left, continue straight ahead? I can't see much further so I have to weight and think about the consequences of my choice.

Do I choose the easy path? Will it bring me joy and fulfillment later on? What happens if I would just coast along, wouldn't it be boring after a while? Do I choose the constant path? The one that's always the same, no changes, no challenges, no adventures? How about that one that seems to lead straight into a huge mountain and it seems to end right there? But does it really? I can't clearly see unless I follow it there. If I choose that one, if it's really great, how would I deal with this huge obstacle? Climb it? Go around it? Choose a different path that can take me to where I want to be anyway, but one that will take longer?

I seriously see this in my mind for I came across so many of those types of paths so far! I made really bad choices, but amazinly they let me to where I am now. I think I could have gotten here a lot faster if not for those long, wrong paths, but were they really wrong? Didn't I learn about what NOT to do because of them? Sometimes I wonder if I could have learned everything I know now in an easier way, but who's to say? Those were the paths that I took and I would love to share my experiences with all of you and would also love to learn about yours.

So welcome! And let the story begins...