Living the Life

I talked with a guy on the phone at work the other day who lives down in Georgia. Never met the guy before but we have chatted several times about a project we are working on together. It's always the normal greeting, "How are you doing?" I am not sure when we ask that question that really want their honest answer. We are just being polite. We really want to hear. "Just fine and how are you?" For which we respond in kind, "Just fine, thanks for asking" and then we are about our business.

My response depending on who I am talking to is usually, "I'm fine just trying to stay out of trouble......which I am having a hard time doing." It always gets a chuckle but it is the truth. Overall I am doing pretty good, life, health, work and family are all well. And yes it is true, I am consistently trying to stay out of trouble with.....well, life, health, work and my family! Everyday. Some days more successfully than others.

However this gentleman responded to my normal phone cheer with his very unique response. "Oh I'm just living the life that dreams are made of." Now that is the short version. I have to remember to right down his extended one because it has to be a memorized speech that he offers up often. But he said it with such a joyful voice that it made me laugh. Of course he could be just saying this in a sarcastic way but I didn't hear that in his voice.

I started thinking about his response in more detail. JUST LIVING THE LIFE...aren't we all. Unless you are a zombie which seems to be going around a lot lately. That and vampires! I'm just living the life. The one I have here. The one that God has blessed me with. There really isn't any complaints because if I didn't like it then I would move on. So since I am fine with it then I should just embrace it and rejoice in what I am fortunate to have. There could be more....but there could be less too.

How about THAT DREAMS ARE MADE OF? Kind of a Disney or movie magic ending thought that ends like that for maybe half of the 1% of the 1% of us. Okay that was pessimistic. But I think most of us FEEL that we don't live the life of our dreams. Okay maybe some of us have lots of nightmares. That would be terrible. If you have read some of my blog posts you know that I always have very vivid weird dreams. 3 or 4 a night. No there isn't any rational for them....I'm just deranged.

Example in care you don't believe me: Last night I was an architect doing an inspection at a construction site. Normal so far. It was a wooden tower that had a wooden ladder to get to the top and the contractor was John Walton.... Yes that John Walton. He was wearing his blue coveralls too. He was showing me the damage that a giant bird had caused when it dropped a large stone bolder inside the structure. The rock had rolled off and went on down the cliff into the rain forest but Mr. Walton was taking care of the repairs necessary to get the project back on track.......okay figure out how to put that down in your field report!

Dreams and Life. It is what we make of them. Usually our life consists of the decisions we have made and the consequences from those decisions.
First rule: Make good decisions.
Second rule: Don't be afraid to dream.
Third rule: Just do it and stop worrying about it.

Living the life my friends. That is what we do. See you on the other side of the dreams.

Et this I believe
Eugene Thompson