Live An Exceptional Life by Robin Sharma

I love to read. I would read all day (well, some days) if it were possible. I enjoy all kinds of books. And I relish learning something new. Especially if it is designed, and I accept, to make me a better me. In some fashion or another. Well, I came across this article and it spoke to me, very faintly, and in often interrupted spasms, but I finally got it. And I printed it out. And I carry it with me to remind me that I have some refining to do.....

So I am sharing....

Mr. Sharma asks how one crafts an exceptional life? ...Life goes by in a blink. And too many people live the same year 80 times. To avoid getting to the end and feeling flooded with regret over a live half lived, read, and apply.....(he lists 60 ways---I, not so many) but they are all his.

1. Exercise daily. 2. Get serious about gratitude. 3. Keep a journal. 4. Know the 5 highest priorities of your life. 5. Say no to distractions. 6. Improve your work every single day. 7. Eat less food. 8. Find more heros. 9. Be the most ethical person you know. 10. Don't settle for anything less than excellence. 11. Savor lifes' simplest pleasures. 12. Save 10% of your income. 13. Write thank you letters to those who've helped you. 14. Forgive those who've wronged you. 15. Creat unforgettable moments with those you love. 16. Become stunningly polite. 17. Unplug the tv. 18. Read daily. 19. Avoid the news. 20. Be content with what you have. 21. Be passionate. 22. Never miss a moment to celebrate another. 23. Be patient. 24. Clean up your messes. 25. Be a great teammate. 26. Shift from being busy to achieving results. 27. Speak less. Listen more. 28. Be the best person you know. 29. Make your life matter.

I know I can never attain all of these. I can not even come close to some. But I can make my life, my attitude, my outlook closer to ideal every single day. Which means it's on the opposite end of the teeter-totter than becoming less and less like the woman I want to be. Like the person I want to be. And it would be oh so pleasant if I could leave some positive attributes to my favorite people.....

NOT a Hollywood Starlet......

Some days one can get caught up in the frenzied muddle of images, notions and sometimes shallow beliefs that bombard us. The forever pounding of a "perfect, have it all, do it all, symbolize it all" image of what a woman 'should' be. The perfect hair, the perfect clothes, the perfect size 0 body, the shiniest car, the well behaved/well dressed children, the husband that dotes on his 'princess'...and the perfect career. And, I admit, I get caught up at times only to find myself a little depressed and delusional. Can't keep up. Too tired. Too broken to fix......

It usually takes a good swift kick in the butt to regain my position in this narcissitic society. Yes, me, sometimes.

I am truly happiest, finding the most joy in life, when I remember that I AM a small town country girl from Glendale, Utah. That I grew up learning how to work and to work hard. To give a day and a half's work for a days pay. That running through freshly mown grass in my bare feet and wading in the creek with the same was sheer majesty. Sleeping outside under nothing but the stars, and being awed by the whole thing time after time. I am happiest in these kinds of scenarios.....not the superficial advertised and always unattainable "what I should be". I am a barefoot, simple, forever energetic and curious, blessed with talents that sometimes I shelf for a time. I am a little sister. I am a big sister to my one an only brother. I am a daughter, a grand daughter, a niece, an aunt, a friend, a babysitter. I ride a hand me down bicycle for years. I wear hand me down clothes for the same years. I took piano lessons and practiced thirty long long minutes every day- day in and day out. I have a grandmother that is a wonderful artist and school teacher and proper,and a grandfather that is an always learning, always reading, always studying, always expanding his intellect. And they both shared all of that with me. So I am blessed. I am fortunate. I am the person put here to be me. No one else has all the training possible to be the me that I am. (Not that anyone would trade me places!!) So, I smile, and I think back, and I think forward. I take all that is me and all that I would like to be and meld them together and live each day with all that sunshine in my past. And look ahead to all the sunshine coming up. Mingled of course with snow, and rain, and wind and rain, and clouds and rainbows. And it makes that 'muffin top' and that less than toned abs/butt/legs/arms a little less disgusting. The laugh lines around my eyes and mouth are there because I've had many, many happy hours. And though I wouldn't ask to do them all over, every experience that has been mine has brought me to loftier heights than a physical image could ever compensate for.

So when my grandson says I'm too heavy to go down the slide, that my arm looks like a horses' butt, that I am NOT his mother-she doesn't have that many wrinkles, I can just smile because what I got in return-the love of grandkids and the like-is so well worth it.