The Million Dollar Question

Bryson and Conor at Mt. Eddy Summit. November 17, 2010.

So...it’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything to my blog and during that time I’ve been busy thinking.  Thinking about my future and what I want to do next with my life.  As I’ve been reading, thinking, and processing, there have been several things that caught my attention and that I’ve learned from.  The first thing was something written about my Great Uncle Stewart who passed away while I was in the Dominican Republic.  While visiting relatives in California, I came across the pamphlet from his funeral service.  The pamphlet said a lot of great things, but what hit me the hardest was when it read, “He lived the life he imagined.”  Wow!  I think that line sums up Uncle Stewart...he lived healthy well into his 90s and continued to do the things he loved until he passed!  As I read those words, I thought, “man, I want to be able to say that.”  I want to be able to say I lived the life I imagined.  It really made me think....Am I living the life I imagined?  What is the life I imagined for myself?  I think all too often we don’t live the life we imagined or the life we dreamed of.  Now, this alone isn’t a bad thing. Life always changes and evolves.  So, the life we’re living might be not be the life we imagined, but it might still be great.  It’s just different or perhaps even better.  I’ve heard people say before, “This isn’t the life I imagined at all, it’s better.”  I think the bad part is when we know we’re not living the life we imagined and we end up just settling for something less that isn’t what we really want.  What I’m getting to here is that those words made me think about how I want to spend my time on this earth.  What is the life I imagine?  The great part about that is that I get to create that image of my life.  I’m the artist.  Of course, the next step is making that image a reality.  After you know what you want, you have to go out and get it.  

That brings me to another question that has had me thinking during the past couple of months.  My friend Lauren first asked me this question back in July when I was in Nicaragua...she said, “What would you do if you had a million dollars?”  Of course, a lot of ideas popped into my mind, but the question made me really think about what I want to do with my life.  What do I want to do with my time on  this earth?  What do I want my funeral pamphlet to read?  I started to ask other people this question as well and have received a million different answers.  Of course, there are answers like...I’d buy a new car, or invest in the stock market.  Those answers aside, I focused on the answers that had to do with people’s dreams and the lives they imagined.  I’d hear people say, “I’d like to do volunteer work.”  “I’d like to take a trip to Europe.” “I’d like to learn to take good pictures.”  “I’d like to learn to play the guitar.”  “I’d like to climb a mountain.”  As I processed the answers to these questions, I really began to ask another question.  My question is, why don’t we do those things that we say we’d do if we had a million dollars?  In other words, if that’s what you’d do if you had a million dollars, then that’s what you should be doing now.  Right?  I guess the point that I’m trying to make is that we don’t need a million dollars to start living our dreams.  To live the life we imagined.  We just need to go do it.  Overcome those fears, and do it.  We may need to start small, but we must start!  A friend of mine once read me a quote that said, “God gives us all the ingredients we need for our daily bread...but He expects us to the baking.”  Dreams aren’t just going to land in our lap.  We have to do the work!  So go out and live the life you imagined!  

As I finish this blog post, there is one more thing that has me thinking.  It is a recent post from one of my favorite humanitarian photographers named David Duchemin, that prompted me to actually write this post that I have been thinking about for so long.  Check out the post at Life is Short.   Check out his blog at www.pixelatedimage.com/blog/

His words resonate with all that I have been thinking about lately and inspire me to go out and chase my dreams, love harder, laugh more, and not be afraid to take those chances.  I challenge you to complete the sentence that he starts.

Life is short and therefore I will...