Life is a journey and not a destination so my number one rule when it comes to taking back control of yourself and the way you feel about the future is to recognize we never reach the end in this part of a much bigger picture. Every new day is an opportunity to change the record and do something different.
I have found the key to true happiness is simple when you dig yourself out of the rut and remember the person you started out with on the journey of life. And trust me I am an expert on this very subject having had it all, lost it and worked hard to come back over quite a few years self therapy.
We all begin at the beginning with gusto, hopes and dreams on the straight and narrow road to a purpose driven life but as we get older we are thrown curve balls which lead us down side streets with dead ends.
A perfect example of this is kind of temporary distraction is when we first fall in love with that boy of our dreams, the one never expected in a million years to ever even notice us let alone ask for a date. And no matter how confident, resilient, self-sufficient, centred, mature or focused on a purpose you are, that intense feeling of love, desire and euphoria, better known as the love drug, takes you down like a massive dose of the flu and we have all done it. Distractions are there just to trick us, often made up in the template of life, expected of us all, to follow in the footsteps of those we trust and those we have modelled ourselves on but that template is not real and not compulsory.
Like a game of snakes and ladders life is the same, the ups and downs with the throw of the dice and many times we are not even really thinking about winning the game but just reaching a small goal then tumbling down a snake back to square one, after choosing a side road.
In my own life, I can honestly say that whenever I fell in the arms of a man, things usually took a turn for the worse because once the love drug took hold paralysing my sensible head, I forgot all about me and focused entirely on him. I am sure if you are honest with yourself and reading this right now you will look back and maybe discover the choices you have made when you were young and stupid have now left you older and supposedly wiser looking at a stranger every time you look in the mirror. For me the greatest thing about being single, celibate and alone at 64 is the fact I have taken back control of myself, re-joined the straight and narrow road, stopped being distracted by those side roads and I avoid those snakes like the plague, to follow the amazing journey of my life once again.
It is never too late to start again and go for exactly what you want from your life if you rewind the past, restore faith and confidence in yourself, rejuvenate your outlook, rejoice the fact you're alive and then rebel against everything you have been told about being middle aged.