What do you want? And I mean, what do you really want?
A good friend of mine asked me this not so long ago. It stumped me, it made me think and this was what I told him:
I want to be able to make a difference in the world. I want to be able to make people smile, to give them hope and show them there’s more to life than the shit they have to deal with everyday. I want to show them that nothing is impossible, that they can handle everything, because we know the shit doesn’t stop, but we also know we can handle it. I want them to know how beautiful they are. I want to help them have more fun, more laughter and more ‘this totally rocked my world’ moments! That’s what i want to do for them.
What I want for myself is to be fit and healthy, to live and work on a beach from my laptop and swim in my garden everyday. I don’t need a big house, just a great view with lots of light and the sound of the ocean day and night. I want to have unlimited frequent flyer points with a bottomless account for worldwide adventures that will never run out!!
I want to be able to travel the world at the drop of a hat, and spend quality time with my worldly friends. I want to be able to buy my dad a Winnebago, my brother a car and just help out my family whenever I can. I want to be in love and I want to share all of this with someone, my man, my best friend and my red hot sexy lover.
But there was once a time when answering this question was impossible…
Now forgettting the red hot sexy lover bit (and if you can, you’re stronger than I am!) I wonder if you could ask yourself the same thing. What do you want and why do you do what you do? Are you doing it because you’re good at it or are you doing it because you love it? Are you doing it because you have to or are you doing it because everyone else wants you to?
Up until 9 years ago (holy shit was it really that long ago?!) I was in a career that paid me good money. I was in a career that meant I could go on great holidays, I could buy properties and I could do whatever I wanted, when I wanted.
But then some fucker burst my bubble and asked me what I wanted!! Excuse me??!! What do you mean what do I want, what’s my dream? What a crazy question! I scowled…I do what I do because I do what I do. You mean there’s more to it than that?! I’d never heard anything so crazy!! Why would you want to plan your life? I thought. Why would you want to think about any other moment apart from right now? I mused. Surely right now was all we had and surely right now was all that mattered.
…It’s funny what happens to your thinking when you lose a parent at 12, and it’s funny how suddenly ‘living’ takes on a whole new meaning. I don’t quite know why I decided I would die so young but decide it I did. So living every moment was all I had, or at least ‘living’ every moment was all I thought I had…
And that’s when it happened, that’s when my entire world turned upside down. That was when this relatively successful business woman suddenly realised that without having something to work towards, something to be passionate about then really, I mean really, what was the point? Not that my life until that point had been worth nothing. Of course not, I was an optimist remember, but it sure as hell meant that from that point on, my life would mean everything.
So I’m sure it will come as no surprise when I tell you within 2 months I’d left my job, within 2 months I’d left my boyfriend and within 3 months I’d left my home.
I think where I got the most clarity was in understanding who I was. Understanding what was important to me and understanding what was not. Leaving the rat race that first time was the courage I needed to keep doing it again and again until finally after the fourth time, I knew I would never return. That fourth time was 3 years ago now and I can honestly say I’ve never looked back.
I get to inspire people every day, I get to make people feel good every day and I get to do all that by being me, every day. I had a friend to ask me so as your friend, I ask you. What do you want and why do you do what you do?
Be who you are. Be all of who you are…
Welcome to 'emergise' and my blog, 'secret diary of a good girl'. Let me introduce myself, my name is Emma Fairclough and I am a good girl. I am a good girl with a twist.
