Every once in a while I feel like disappearing.
I mean, I want to hop in my car, and never look back. Okay, my life is really not that bad at all – in fact, I’m rather in love with my life right now! But there are times I want to get in my car with my old guitar and a brand new set of strings….. wait that’s a country song.
Okay, so I’ll admit I’m a bit cliché. This really is a photo of my feet (in hot-damn sexy shoes) on the hood of my black sports car. I really do enact county songs on old back roads, but not with beer, and not with whatever else they do in the back of trucks, so my country song would be rather lackluster and go something like this:
She sat by herself on the hood of her car, all by herself, all by herself.
No beer, no cigarette, no hand to hold, just her and the wind and bugs.
At least she has a great pair of shoes on…..da…da…da…
Okay, so it doesn’t rhyme, but you get the picture before I really start to depress myself.
Here’s the thing.
Sometimes, I think we all want to get away. I mean, really get away from it all. We maybe wonder what our life would be like if we had chosen a different life path. What if we had moved to Tegucigalpa or Toledo? Or dated Bruno from the high school football team? Or married the banker? Or lived in Germany permanently? What if we had one more child? Or one less child? Or won the lottery that you really knew was yours to win? Or if I was hot and skinny? (cough)
Sometimes “what if’s” can spin both ways. They can make you incredibly thankful (like you are soooo glad you didn’t marry Bruno) or they can also put you in a funk REALLY fast (like when your neighbour won the lottery instead and stole your wife, your dog and your chickens too!)
Especially when you start considering your financial “what if’s”.
My biggest what if lately is what my life would be like if I didn’t have this financial albatross around my neck in the form of crappy rental properties that I’ve had for 10-years already. Long story, which I will save for another time.
However, here’s the deal with “what if’s” – they really don’t serve us – at all!
“What if’s” can paralyze us, keep us dreaming and not in action towards our real goals, and keep us stuck in the past.
“What if’s” can really make us feel sorry for ourselves – another useless emotion.
Anything that keeps us from taking action on our goals, dreams, plans, is completely useless to us.
Where do you find yourself tossing around the “what if’s” in your head right now? Use that as a clue to what your dreams are! Use that as an indicator to what your next steps, your actions should be!
For example, if you find yourself thinking, “What if we had this debt paid off?” or “What if we had money to buy that boat?” Then use your “what if” to make a plan to pay off your debt, or save money for that boat, and then go to work on that plan. Set the intention and get to work on it!
“What if’s” usually are the things that really stir your soul!
You don’t go around wondering, “What if I went grocery shopping right now?” If you need groceries, you just go and get them. It’s not something that stirs your soul and probably doesn’t cause you to sit and ponder it on the hood of your car (in sexy stilettos) in the country. No, only deep, important, soul-stirring things will cause you to go out to the country and sit inside a depressing country music song.
So, next time you are caught in your “what if’s”, use them to your benefit to figure out what’s really important to you! (And be thankful you didn’t marry Bruno!)
