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