Is Your Life a Journey or a Destination?

Is your life a journey or a destination? I used to think destination. “I can’t wait for Brett to be in first grade so I don’t have to pay for daycare.” “I can’t wait for Danielle to be accepted into a college she likes and can afford.” The BIG family destination was to travel to all fifty states. Oh, the planning and fun family talks that we had to get to all the states before Danielle graduated from high school. One of the last trips we traveled 3,000 miles in one week and visited Oklahoma City, Dallas, San Antonio, New Orleans, Biloxie, Mobile, and Memphis.

Since I started on what the family calls “the coaching thing” I live life as journey. Every day is a new life. My simple goal is to get to bed every night happy and healthy. Healthy I define by eating produce. When I eat fruits and veggies I am not eating white junky carbs. So, I try to eat 4 servings a day, which amazingly EVEN as a Registered Dietitian is hard for me unless I do a little planning. Produce just doesn’t to “come by” like white junk food does it? Happy I define by three things: What did I accomplish? What did I learn? Who did I help smile today?

Steve Jobs in his commencement speech to Stanford University in 2005 stated, “If you live each day as if it will be your last, someday it most certainly will be.” Every day he looks in the mirror and asks himself, “If today were the last day of my life would I want to do what I am about to do today?” If he answers “No” too many days in a row he needs to change something.

I have advocated mirror talk for years. Every morning I look in the mirror. I wink at myself and say, “Lookin’ good Chere (Sometimes this is a little pep talk as I feel I am really feeling tired, old and not ready for the day), who do you want to be today?” Then I pick an adjective for who I want to show up being. Favorite adjective is sassy. Picture a sassy day.

The good news is you and I have a choice of who we want to be and what we want to do. You can decide today that your life is a journey and that every day is a new life. You can feel fully alive before you die if you live each day awake and conscious. But you gotta plan. You have to live life awake.

Gary and I are living our FABD (Fully Alive Before I Die) lists. Gary is busy making plans to raft the Salmon River this June, while I am starting to prepare to do my first and last triathlon this July. I figured I have spent hours watching triathlons why not just do one. Even though I don’t swim, bike or run. Oh well. Give it a try in Wisconsin where no one knows me. I just want to finish.

What is on your FABD (Fully Alive Before You Die) list? Remember we aren’t lucky like food and come with an expiration date. You and I know we are going to die, just not when. So, if you know you are going to die why aren’t you living like it? (Is this a profound question or what!?)

I challenge you to create your FABD list. Don’t wait. Don’t just read this ezine and say “that’s nice for Chere” and forget your own list. Nothing tastes better than feeling like you are in charge of your life and feeling fully alive before you die.

Accept this challenge and declare your FABD list on our blog here and read what is on our FABD lists. Just use the comments section below!

Here to add value to your life and help you accomplish stuff on your FABD list. Just let me know how, Love Chere

FABD LISTS Chere and Gary, FULLY ALIVE BEFORE WE DIE

Chere
Go to a Packer Game at Lambeau Field with Brenda Vatland
Tuscany, Italy
Library time with no clock and a giant high calorie coffee
Rocky Mountain Park – and help the big horn sheep down the hill
Be a campgrounds host camper for one summer in a national park
Community garden club
Voice lessons
Choir
Lectern one time at church
Write a children’s book
Write book – Why did God Make Gooesebumps..how to give them, get them and keep them or 50 Ways to Savor Your Life Today
Sail the Apostle Islands
Camp for one night in the Boundary Waters ok two
Ice Fishing January 2010
Dog Sled Feb 2010
Publish the 5 ingredient cookbook with Laurie
Hike Lake Louise to the tea house again
Lecture on a cruise ship
Go to Midtown Global Market and eat an octopus taco both # 124 at LaSierra Gorda
Back to London and give a talk there
Give a talk in Switzerland
Olympics
Give another talk in Hawaii
Meet Jaci Pierce in person and hug her
Hike Diamond Head on 70th bday Feb 18, 2025
Have a pontoon boat ride with Gary and Linda
Parachute – ropes course done MOA Feb 18, 2010
Triathlon
Trip with college roomies Diva and Debee

Gary
Monument Valley, AZ done August 2007
Snorkel the Barrier Reef in Beliz, done March 2007
Raft the Salmon River, Summer 2010
Drive to Alaska
Ruins of Peru
Drive California coast one end to the other
Ski through Yellowstone, done Jan 2009
Hike the Grand Canyon
Ski Boundary Waters

2 thoughts on “Is Your Life a Journey or a Destination?”

  1. Our daughter who will turn 18 in June made a list in 2006 of 100 things she wants to do before she dies. She has checked things off since making the list.
    Here is mine:
    do a crane pose and hold it in yoga
    take my husband to lunch at Redamacks in New Buffalo, MI
    see the Ozarks before our daughter graduates from Mizzou in 2012
    go to some diners, drive-ins, and dives from the Food Network show
    Keywest, FL
    SanteFe, NM
    Hawaii
    do a bike trip, can be the How 150 in June
    finish some kind of race
    50 pushups on my 50th birthday April 2011
    take my girls back to Disneyworld’s magic Kingdom now that they are 20, 18
    ruins of Machu Pichu, Peru and take Lauren to see her friend, Grace, who lives in Peru
    see New England states in the fall roadtrip
    go back to Italy
    fix our little log cabin next to big cabin…make it look New Englandish or Door Countyish

    1. great list
      Food Network Food Wars ..come to Mpls and eat a Juicy Lucy at Mat’s Bar which won the contest
      Living intentionally is best hey! Chere

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