From
the Bottom of the Bucket
“Back
to The Past.”
“If I could turn back time….”
Cher
One of the more fascinating aspects
of sleeping is dreaming. Some of the medications
I take for my Parkinson’s has a side effect of affecting this process. Dreams tend to be clearer and more real,
which can be good or bad.
Recently I had a dream which, as
I often do, caused me to reflect on my real life. I suppose that here is a direct connection
between those two thoughts, but I will leave that to Dr. Freud and company. Let’s continue. The main story line is that
somehow (dreams don’t submit themselves to the measure of realism) I was
granted the right to go back in time to a period that was exactly two years ago
to the day, that is July 2018. My location
was at some party where all of my friends had gathered. I had full knowledge of how the next two years
would affect each of them, but I could not share that information directly with them. As I mingled around the room, the conversations
ranged from “What have you been doing?” to “What have you got planned?”...,the
usual party banter.
I moved about listening in on
these conversations, smug with my knowledge about what was actually going to happen.
I cold not resist to drop a few comments.
“You might consider acquainting
yourself with the use of a facemask. ” I
offered.
“The stock market still has room
for growth” I quipped, carefully noticing who and who didn’t note my remarks.
As the old song goes, I wish I
didn’t know now, what I didn’t know then!
When I rejoined the “real” world
the next morning. The thought occurred
to me that, if that situation applied to me, what would I tell myself? I went back, as a point of reference, to Living in the Bucket, July 2018 edition, entitled “The ‘On Purpose’ Person. In that column,
I discussed how I had used my System to Organize and Align my resources to the
process of leading a fulfilling life. I
talked about being the Subject
of one’s sentence of life, not the Object. In short, controlling how we
react to life, rather then letting life act on us. Any advice the experienced Bob would render
to the Bob of the Past?
The only thing that came to me
is to add to your daily routine, some exercise that would call on you to
reinforce how fragile life REALLY is and build the abilities to deal with life daily,
before you need use them. Try to make,
in all your daily Activities, the philosophical concept become a real experience.
For me, it was an interesting exercise.
Why don’t you look back on your
calendar to two years ago, remind yourself where you were at that time and
think about what advice you would give the you of the past? It might help you be better prepared to
handle the next two years.
Until next month, I wish you fulfillment.
Bob
