It’s been 372 days… (from June 30th, 2016 - July 7th, 2017)!!! In the last 372 days, I’ve read the following books, which have all been guiding me on my quest to discover and become the very-best-version-of-myself:
The Element (Ken Robinson) The Little Book of Hygge:
The Danish Way to Live Well (Meik Wiking)
The Rhythm of Life (Matthew Kelly)
Resisting Happiness (Matthew Kelly)
Start With the Why (Simon Sinek)
Make Your Bed (William H. McRaven)
Outliers (Malcolm Gladwell)
Lean In (Sheryl Sandberg)
Year of Yes (Shonda Rhimes)
The Name of God is Mercy (Pope Francis)
On Heaven and Earth (Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Abraham Skorka)
Mother Teresa, CEO (Ruma Bose and Louis Faust)
Mother Teresa: 40 Inspirational Life Lessons and Timeless Wisdom from the Life of Mother Teresa (Scarlett Johnson)
Mother Teresa: In Her Own Words
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up (Marie Kondo)
The Power of Habit: Why we do what we do in life and business (Charle Duhigg)
So what? It’s been almost a year!!! Looking back, I have no idea what I’ve done. Obviously, I haven’t done much that has been so remarkable that it has left an indelible mark on my first year of retirement...that’s for sure!! I guess I’d chalk it up to a year of filling the calendar with ‘stuff’...but, it hasn’t really been stuff that I have had on MY ‘to do list’. It’s been stuff that others may have spurred me to do, or requests that others have made of me, or stuff that has been seemingly unavoidable. That stuff has had very little to do with me...or has it? I believe the ‘stuff’ of these last 372 days has most certainly had an impact on my life. I have diligently looked for the golden nugget in each and every experience along the way, and I have been happy for most of it; but, now it’s time to get a grip on my life and begin the work of transforming myself to become the very-best-version-of-myself, in order to contribute to the greater good of all with whom I come in contact.
Now what? What can I do to make the rest of this journey a fulfilling, enjoyable, purposeful one? How do I begin to ‘make a change’...sounds cliché-ish, and yet, that’s exactly what I need to do in order to be the very-best-version-of-myself. For I owe that to God! I have so many blessings in my life that not becoming the very-best-version-of-myself would be sinful. I owe it to the people I love and to those who love me to be the very-best-version-of-myself. Perhaps the first step is to determine what I need to work on. If the very-best-version-of-myself is a person who gets up every morning with optimism and is happy to get started with her day, then I need to know what makes me happy and how to look at every challenge as an opportunity. Matthew Kelly, in his book, Resisting Happiness, reminds us that we all have an insatiable desire to be happy, but most of us don’t know what really makes us happy or who we want to be.
What makes me happy is…
1. ...being spiritually alive and well
2. ...being purposeful in the world
3. ...belonging to a community of loving and compassionate people
4. ...becoming the very-best-version-of-myself
Who I want to be is...
1. ...a loving and caring member of my family
2. ...a discerning believer formed in my faith
3. ...a self-directed, responsible, lifelong learner
4. ...a collaborative contributing member of society
Share Space:
Embark on a quest to determine what makes YOU happy. :)
● What makes you happy? ● Who do you want to be?
