30 Thoughts Illustrated: #5 What Do You Want?

I have a list of things to cover, including my 2013 goals, my desperate need for an intern, and the long-awaited arrival of the RIGHT light for the laundry room. But, lest you think I have discontinued my 30 Thoughts Illustrated, I want to assure you that I haven’t, by sharing today’s thought and corresponding kindergartenally-simple illustration.

Update: Check out all 30 Thoughts Illustrated here.

THOUGHT #5 – WHAT DO YOU WANT?

Thought #5 was planted a few weeks back by this video What Do You Want by some Omaha Westside High School students and posted by a facebook friend . Isn’t it funny that so many people have such a hard time answering this question? Look at how flummoxed all the askees in the video are, when asked!  How many of us are wandering around our own lives, with no idea of what we want out of this whole experience? And how difficult it is to answer without couching or fitting to a specific context? So of course, this made me really think…what do I want? Here is what I immediately thought…I want it all. In every way. I want the most living I can get out of one life. I don’t want to choose, or couch or contextualize my answer. I just want all of it that I can possibly fit into the seconds and minutes and hours that I have in this life. But I also want it to have meaning; and finding that sweet spot of fully living with meaning is wherein lies the art.

Because “THEY” always seem to want to tell you that you can’t do that, that it’s not possible. You can’t have it ALL because you have to choose none or ust some.  THEY tell you that you can’t possibly accomplish those absurd crazy things that you want to do, because, well, you are just one person and “life just doesn’t work like that…you have to make sacrifices….you have to give things up…no one can have it all…it’s time to grow up…get your head out of the clouds…boom….boom…boom…” And even if you try to have it all, then THEY tell you it surely won’t be meaningful. Because that would be having it all and like THEY already said, that isn’t possible. And THEY are out there pounding, pounding, pounding that message constantly. The drumbeat can get pretty loud in your ears sometimes. And in a tired moment, I would sometimes accidentally hear the beats and let the pounding into my ears and listen. And sometimes I even started to believe the pounding a little bit, and start to move to it. Except that, the problem for me is that pounding didn’t really seem have any affect on the yearning inside of me to do everything that I want to. And I realized that it’s harder to ignore the yearning than it is to ignore the pounding of what THEY say.  So I decided to acknowledge the beat, smile pleasantly, and then continue to do my own dance for it all. Because what I want is IT ALL. And after all, I was never any good at dancing to a beat anyway.

So I’m living it all

Yes’ I’m living it all

And I’m giving it all

I want it all

And I want it now