Besides being a good parent, spouse, friend etc., if you were selfish for a moment and had one wish, one wish to be whatever you wanted to be in life, what would you say?

During my Daughters’ theatre performance this weekend, which she totally nailed, there was a Bugsy Malone number they did which made me reminisce as I sung along (still knowing all the words, of course), but I’m not sure if I’d actually ever listened to the lyrics before now.  “We could’ve been anything that we wanted to be” hits home for me right about now, and is something I’ve been thinking about a lot of late.

Growing up you’re always told the world is your oyster, you can do whatever you want in life, you can be whoever you want to be, so why is it that as you get older, with a family, house and work in tow, these statements become less and less apparent?   They become the things that we now say to our younger generation, yet not always do we, or have we ever lived by these same rules ourselves.

I’m guilty of it too.  I’ve always been ambitious, always had a plan, always wanted to achieve and experience so much from a young age and although that is still very much me on the inside, I fear that life can sometimes tie us down to the norm, and the responsibilities we’ve assigned ourselves means we are restrained from being the person we want to be, doing the things we always planned on doing.

Bugsy said we could have been anything we wanted to be, but is it too late? Don’t get me wrong, life pre-kids was great, there was certainly a lot of ticks off life’s to-do list, but creeping up to 40, is it now too late to fulfil the dreams I still have?  Running a marathon, setting time aside to help those who need it, writing a book, seeing more of the world are all the things I still want to do and then some, so why can’t I just do them?  Time?  Is that the reason, or is that the excuse.

There are plans, awesome plans hopefully coming soon which will change my day to day life, and maybe will open more doors than I can handle, but when the time comes, I will be putting myself into it 100% because I crave it, I crave the challenge, I crave the change, and I crave the satisfaction of doing something I set my mind to.

We should soar for our dreams, we should make them a reality, we shouldn’t let negative people or things stand in our way or hold us back.  We define our passions, we define our goals, we define our lives and we define the person we ultimately want to be.

In reply to the question at the beginning of this entry, I would say happy but then happiness can be a temporary feeling and can be influenced easily by an outside perspective, therefore my answer would be fulfilled.  Fulfillment is deeper, fulfillment lasts, fulfilment is something you can create and control yourself.  So do the things you love, find your purpose, listen to your heart and push yourself to the limits.  Be that person doing those things you’ve always dreamed of.

You’re in control of your life so make that change, do that crazy thing you’ve always wanted to, live the story you’ve written in your dreams.  Bugsy had it wrong, yes we could have been anything we wanted to be, but we still can… as Kylie said, it’s Never Too Late.

Rhian
x
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