Musings from Australia: Luck Has Nothing to Do with Dreams

I have been in Australia for a week now, a beautiful unforgettable week here in Melbourne, a lovely laid-back city that has everything you could need plus an easy, happiness-inducing feeling about it. Yesterday, we drove to see the 12 Apostles. The pictures in this post are from the scene of these stunning rock formations along the south coast of Melbourne. The inspiration from this post was not just by luck. It came straight from the wind and the sound of the waves crashing against these rocks.

God, I just love traveling! It is a habit that we picked up one day many years ago, a habit that overnight changed the prospect of a future possible event to a bright new reality. No longer were we saying “Someday we are going to Paris.” Now we were saying, “This Thanksgiving, we will go to Paris for 4 days. We don’t mind the freezing cold because we own jackets and gloves and it turns out Europe in the winter is romantic!”

We started to put hard dates on the calendar: This year, this September, this birthday, this winter, this weekend, and no more a meek someday. What guarantee does someday have? How can I trust it to hold my dreams in the palm of its unreliable hands? How could I depend on a time in the future that is so vague, so loosely-defined, so far out there and so undefined? How can you trust someday with your precious dreams?

We are certainly not an independently wealthy couple who can live a care-free life off a vast income but boy do we get that a lot, and amusing as that may be, it is far from the truth. “Oh that lucky couple; they have nothing to do, no responsibilities and no obligations to hold them back, so they travel all the time.”

Trust me, anything but luck got me here to this place in my life. Everything I have and everything I own, I built with my own two hands. I did not inherit a penny and I did not expect the government of any country where I lived to “take care of me” because, well, frankly, I’d rather die than be a burden to society but also because as a capable human being, all of us can take fine care of ourselves if we have the will to do so.

As for those who think that luck played a part in my life or the life of others who live out their dreams, they shall sadly never enjoy the same for themselves because they refuse to believe one simple fact: The life of your dreams can be yours. No exceptions. Period.

It does not matter who you are and what your circumstances because all of that is irrelevant, and because there are too many true stories that will dismantle any lie you tell yourself about how you may be a victim of circumstance and how life is so “unfair” to you. Those are lies, rubbish to use a favorite term, and it’s best to stop telling yourself so many of them in the course of your only life.

If you dream of travel, you can have travel. If you dream of living a rich life, you can have a rich life. If you dream of many children and dogs, by God you can have as many of those as you want. It is all about making up your mind and deciding where you will end up. It is about living life on your own terms rather than being shoved around by the pressures of society and custom and tradition. It is about learning to design your life and playing a major role in it rather than watching it happen from the sidelines.

Anything that argues with you is a form of self-sabotage if it is coming from the inside and a form of others expressing jealousy and building resistance so that you do not achieve your dreams if it comes from the outside. It is your choice to allow it or disallow it. There is no such thing as luck. Everyone creates their own luck so stop comparing yourself to others. You have to be good to get lucky. Very, very good indeed.

Are you good at living your life? Are you good at listening to your heart? Are you good at starting over? Are you good at following your purpose and believing that your dreams are far from silly and unworthy, no matter how strange they may sound to the ears of society or parents or tradition? The better you are, my darling, the luckier you get, and that is the cycle you want to hit in your life, because it is driven wholly by you, and when you feel empowered to drive your own life, well, few things can get in the way, and dreams turn into reality every single day.

So tell me, tell me honestly because no one is listening or cares that much except you, are you vigilant or complacent about your life? Because you alone decide your path and with it, your chances of every success along the way.

I do not exactly remember the specific event that made the dream of travel stick like super glue with little intention of coming off anytime soon. I just know that the event led to a feeling, a feeling that I cannot shake, a feeling of belonging not just to one place called home but to many places, and within many cultures and nations. It may be the longing to return to my home country, something that I can never do but in the process, I yearn to go to places that reignite the feelings of a far away land and possibly invoke memories of my childhood as they manifest themselves in one form or another in these new places. It may be the urge to see and discover as much as possible before my old age. It may even be in the search of something that is not even known to me just yet, something that I will instantly recognize once I find it!

Whatever the reason may be, the travel bug is deep in my core and the cure is far from happening, much to the dismay of our family who wonders when we will settle down and probably have some little ones to bind us permanently to our home and routines so that the furthest trip would be the one we take to the local beach. The thought of being bound alone terrifies me, so I keep traveling, even if it just for the sake of traveling.

Why the South Pacific for so many days? Because I felt like it. Because I love the thrill of a foreign culture that is not so foreign at all. Because I like the Aussies and the Kiwis. Because it’s summer down here and I hate winters unless it’s a short trip to Europe, because well, that’s just romantic. Because I could get business class seats and I read best at 32,000 feet, with or without turbulence. Because as much as I love my home, my routine, my 5:45am classes at Sync studio, my yoga teacher Vickie, my sun room and my own bed, I love to go away from home and cross oceans and lands just for the hell of it. But most of all, because being bound to one single place makes me uneasy, gives me jitters, and might even give me heart problems, I am convinced. And so I travel.

In the end, you realize that your beloved parents or your friends or your colleagues or even your partner in life – if you differ on the subject of your dreams! – mean no harm, they simply cannot relate and therefore, cannot understand the desires of your heart the way that you do. Your job is to make sure that you do understand desires of your own heart, because if not for you, it will not survive and it will be too late when you ask yourself the really hard questions in your old age, questions like what was the meaning of your life, what was your purpose on this earth and what were you thinking and doing with it all along?

Whatever you dream, decide to live it. You may dream of living in a large metropolitan city or in a tiny fishing village. You may want to have lots of babies or devote your life to take care of endangered species. You may want to have nothing to do with babies, humans or animals! You may want an active social life and countless friends about you or you may choose solitude and seek ashrams around the world to find inner peace through the practice of yoga.

Your dreams and desires will be different from others because they are as unique as you. So stop betraying yourself and start listening, stop defending your dreams and start protecting them, stop living someone else’s vision of your life and start living your own, and stop telling yourself lies like it can’t be done and start seeing possibilities and opportunities appear along the way. Stop the insanity of denial and start embracing your ideal vision of life. And watch yourself get very “lucky” very fast.

What do you think? Is it luck that accompanies some along the journey of life while it leaves the rest behind? Or do we create our own luck in life? Share your thoughts!

Tagged as: change, decision, family, habits, life, self-discovery, smart habits, strength

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