(Click play to listen to the poem here!)

 

Imagine your life as one long road trip.

A road trip requires a starting point. In the life road trip it’s here and now.
A road trip requires a destination.
That’s a little more difficult in the life road trip.
We think of a destination as a place and time we can fill in as we would for a road trip.

On this life road trip, as Baby Boomers we are thinking about the “retirement” phase of our lives and have destinations like “When I retire, I want to have (fill in the blank with money, homes and things)”.
and/or “When I retire I want to live in (fill in location) or live at (fill in the blank with the beach, the mountains, the golf course, etc..)”. “When I retire I want to (fill in the blank with travel, spend time with grandchildren, garden, etc..)”.

I believe what we rarely think seriously about when dreaming/designing our retirement is
“I want to feel (fill in the blank).”

In my case the feeling I seek is FREE and at PEACE.

Back to planning this “road trip”. If life is an ongoing road trip, it appears the final destination should be death?
It sounds morbid, I know. But, think about it! We know we will die one day, but we spend most of our time resisting even thinking about it.

A week or two ago, my husband and I finally took the long avoided step of updating our wills which included a living will, advanced health directives, financial powers of attorney and putting everything in a trust.

Oh BOY, a concentrated “focus on death” meeting, can’t wait!!

It occurred to me, the reason for this, even though I’m only halfway (now my end zone is 140 years, lol!) doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen tomorrow.

Why do this?

1) We don’t want our family, friends and loved ones to be surprised to have the responsibilities we are assigning, so we have to decide, assign and inform them now.

2) We need to make decisions like this BEFORE we lose the capacity to make them clearly.

The bottom line is, the trip could end today.

Back to the road trip metaphor. On the “road trip” of life, IMHO, the destination is not a time or a place, it’s a feeling.

If the feeling for you as it is for me is peace and/or free, I want my guidance systems, my internal GPS to be set for that destination now, every day. Why wait?

We can’t afford to waste a minute. We can’t afford to take a wrong turn and head back down the path to the “prison” of belief systems that brought us to this place of dreading getting old.

This is the key to peace and freedom.

What is your guidance system or internal GPS?

Maybe the question is who is your guide? Who or what has created the map your are following?

I was following a map drawn by society, culture, family, school, friends, religion, etc..

In the second half I am examining the values that went into drawing that map. I am questioning and thinking critically about my goals and the inner voice of my ego that was formed by the aforementioned guides.

I find I am still tempted by shiny objects and fast fixes. However, I am getting better at discerning. I am getting better at accepting my true guidance system, aka, the other quieter inner voice.

SHE (the other quieter inner voice) takes her time. SHE is never rushed and SHE doesn’t take shortcuts. SHE doesn’t care if the other, louder inner voice (aka EGO) wins some days because SHE knows her guidance is the way and I will get there eventually.

Think of your life as a continual road trip. If you know the feeling that is your true destination, you will know when you’ve taken a wrong turn because you’re not feeling that way.

If you find yourself in the opposite state of your destination ( for example, for me it’s fear, anger, hurt, worry…) STOP, BREATHE, ACCEPT; after all, whatever it is, it is. Accept your situation and move on. It’s like a flat tire, you accept it, fix it and you’re on your way again.

Before you know it, voilà, you have ARRIVED!

I know you have a choice, so thank you for flying (reading) with ME today!

This is Graceing Agefully™.