This week has been filled with a lot of thinking and far too little sleeping as I try to work out what I’m doing with my life.
I’m not alone in pondering the big “what next”; plenty of people go through this every day and my fellow transplantee Victoria blogged about it just this week, but for some reason I’m still at a loss.
It wasn’t until I took a long drive with my wonderful fiancée K today that I truly understood what drives me and what I really and truly want to do with myself.
SEEING THE NEGATIVE
For me, my new life is all about making a different, about showing people just what an amazing gift transplant is and why everyone should be signed up to the organ donor register in whatever country they call their home.
But I also realised that I’m currently driven my negative emotions: I don’t want to let my donor down; I don’t want to live a placid, unadventurous life; I don’t want people to look at me and think I’m wasting this opportunity.
FINDING THE POSITIVE
What I’ve realised I need to do above all else is to live for positive goals, to live for things that will drive me through ambition, excitement and joy rather than fear of failure or judgement.
I need to take positive steps forward, not resist stepping backwards.
Remarkable things and remarkable people only happen through their own determined, positive actions towards making their dreams, goals or passions turn into a reality.
We all know sitting around waiting for something to happen doesn’t make it so. But we never stop to think that going forward in fear and trepidation can be just as harmful to our eventual success as apathy and torpor.
A RESOLUTION
From now on, despite the bumps, the hurdles, the obstacles and the setbacks that I know will come my way, I vow to push forward, I promise to live my life in a positive frame, I pledge to smile through it all ((I should have listened to myself earlier)) and stop living in fear of what might never be, but instead to fight for how I want things to be.
It’s going to be a long, hard road. I don’t yet know where it will take me, what I will achieve nor how I will achieve it, but I know that going forward with positivity, with happiness in my heart and in the knowledge that I can achieve whatever I set my mind to will see me through.
I want to take you along on the ride with me. Not just here, on the blog, but in the wider scope of things.
NEXT STEPS, BABY STEPS
I will shortly be setting up a Facebook page for Smile Through It where we can all share the things that make us smile from day to day and our own positive steps towards doing the things we really want to achieve in life.
I’m also currently planning a major new documentary film project to help tell my story, but also to understand the psychology behind people given a second chance at life.
Do we all feel a desire to make an impact, or is it just my twisted psyche that drives me to achieve big things? Do we all feel a pressure to make the most of life, or is it just about an appreciation for the little things?
More on that to come, no doubt, but for now, here’s to positive steps forward in the right frame of mind.
Keep smiling.
“In the end, it’s not about the years in your life that count, but the life in your years” Abraham Lincoln