Missy Jo's

 Just sharing as i think through this week....

Source.... Prolific Living.com

How to Know a Passion from a Passing Fancy?

You know the professionals do not intimidate you; they simply inspire you!
You study the works of the pros and aspire to follow in their footsteps!
You listen to the advice of others but no one can tell you to quit it for the world!
You take your work, your art, your passion seriously – even if no one else does!
You think of a vacation or a weekend away with ways to feed your passion!
You hardly care how long you spend learning about it and teaching yourself the details of each skill set!
Your face lights up when you find another who shares your passion!
You learn the lingo. Yes, it may be silly to outsiders but to those on your field, it is the way people communicate!
You save up for your tools of trade and consider it an investment not an expense!
You reap a deep and undeniable satisfaction from it and every fiber of your being knows that this is no passing fancy!

As i ponder i also remember some of my wishes.....

      I wish I had always felt proud and not ashamed of my roots, my name and my nationality.

I wish I had never lost my childhood friends. 

I really wish I had started feeding my insatiable desire of traveling a long time ago…..so many reasons and so many excuses but in the end, I waited. Now, I cannot seem to satisfy this famished heart, no matter what I do. 

I wish I had picked up and gone to live somewhere far away by myself for any period of time. Now it is a bittersweet wonder thinking about the chances I never took.

I wish I had been braver. Not in matters of the heart, I was plenty brave there! In matters of choosing how I live, where I live, and what I do for a living.

Oh how I wish I had been more adventurous in what I do for a living. Now I have a lifetime of work to feed yet another famished desire on the brink of starvation.

I wish I had learned to forgive earlier in my life. I wish I knew its healing powers are truly for the one who forgives.

I wish I had not let family nonsense create years of distance between me and my cousins. Now it would take an army of men and an act of God to even try and separate us.

I wish I had written down every single memory of my grandfathers so I wouldn’t have to beg my parents to fill the aching gaps. If only I had recordings of their perfect voices. I wish I just remembered more.

I wish I had taken care of my body when it broke down in the face of injuries, rather than stubbornly pressing on. I wish I had been kinder to myself.

I wish I had been more patient and less judgmental of the love of my life, my best half, my partner and my friend. Now I delight in making it up to him for the rest of my days.

I wish I knew how to just drop an argument when I can hardly remember what on earth I was arguing about two days later. Only heartache remains after a silly quarrel or even an intense one. The most bitter lesson of all for the intimate relationships of our life!

I wish I had given less of myself to work and more of myself to me.

I wish I had reflected more often, listened inwardly more carefully and followed my heart more unconditionally.

Alas, we live and learn. The most important things turned out just fine. The rest shaped the edges of my personality and gave me determination for living life on my terms now. With all this wishful thinking, even if I could, I should not be able to bear to turn back the hands of time and make adjustments to what is already lived and done with. I do not have the guts to leave this moment for even a second, lest I come back to find it even slightly changed from its perfect pure present state.

I think decisions of our early youth, no matter where we fall on the wishful thinking scale, are bound to us with a sense of longing and tenderness. We think of the young, all-knowing, all-encompassing spirit we used to be and we can hardly blame ourselves. We did the best we could at the time with best of intentions, a good heart and the tools at our disposal. If we had followed the advise of our elders, we would to this day be wondering what if we had not! If we had taken too many risks, we may be looking back with nostalgia at the safer road to adulthood and if we had followed along with less risks and safer choices, we would be wondering about the unexplored adventures we must’ve missed out on.

There is just no winning at this game. There is no way to know what would’ve been or could’ve been. Regrets are pointless. What is done is done. Whatever happened happened ! There is only a path ahead, a life to live, lessons to learn and an evolution of the mind and heart which eventually leads us to exactly where we need to be and precisely whom we are meant to become.