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When we start our strategic planning sessions we talk about defining your vision or your dream for the future.  Remember your dream? Perhaps you were going to retire and sail through the Caribbean on a tall sailing ship.  Or turn your hobby into wildly successful business.  I was sitting on my deck overlooking the ocean waiting for all my royalty checks to roll in. 

Today, instead of sleeping under the stars on a clipper ship in the Caribbean your struggling to keep the bottom line positive and working twelve hour days.   So, what the hell happened?  Kind of a dumb question because we know the answer.  Life happened.  We had to work to pay the bills, you raised a family, you got that call from the doctors office, or maybe you had to care for someone sick.  All sort of  unplanned events happened and interfered with your dream.  And along the way you got old.  Damn, I hate it when that happens.

Today, you wonder if you still have time to dream.  The problem is, once we stop dreaming we stop living.  We kind of give up.  That recliner starts looking better.  We start to think back and realize that our earlier dreams perhaps were a bit aggressive.   We talk ourselves out of ever dreaming again.   I am betting that we all know someone who decided to sit in the recliner and give up on life believing that this is what retirement was all about.

I was reading the other day and the author pointed out that the only difference between a rut and a grave is the dimensions (This statement was made famous by Ellen Glasgow in the early 1900's).  So, you give up on life, do nothing to enliven your spirits, and perhaps fill the air with complaints. Then you die, from boredom.  Isn't it time for a new dream?

There a lot of things I wonder about in this life and one of those things is faith. I had thought that faith meant a belief in something as being true without any proof. As I get older this definition has changed for me. I now believe that faith is a belief that life is worth living for many reasons based on my life experiences. If I have faith I say to myself, I'm going to go for it. After I explained this to someone I got the question; faith in what? That got me thinking again. My faith could be based on faith in myself, faith in my friends, or faith in a higher power. At some level I believe that it is all of the above. I have faith that my life has a purpose and that if I am true to myself, life will be worth living. I think that in most cases a person's faith is really not blind. Their faith is based on their understanding of life and their experiences.

Faith goes hand and hand with your belief. If I see someone that is very frustrated or in despair, I would say that they have lost their faith. This could be because they have doubts about their belief or because of experiences that have violated their faith. Life does not guarantee that we will only have pleasant experiences. What I believe is that faith promises that each experience has a purpose and ultimately that purpose is positive.

We have a great luxury that allows us to build our faith based on our understanding of life and that would allow for a positive view. We can get all tangled up in religion but there is no need for that. You just need to affirm what faith means to you. Start with faith in yourself and build a support structure. It is ultimately your decision if this will be a positive or a negative influence. Now we get to where the rubber meets the road, or as my father would say - the bottom line. You and you alone are accountable for your life.