Vision.

"Make your vision so clear that fear becomes irrelevant." - Kerwin Rae

For a moment, let us imagine the best possible version of ourselves. Happy, prosperous, fit, and in love with our dream partner. Hold that vision in your mind's eye.

The dictionary defines vision as the act or power of imagination. (Merriam-Webster, 2016). We move into the future, live it out, return to the present, and start working toward the picture. We are here with a specific purpose, but a vision helps us move and direct our purpose.

Vision gives direction and a glimpse over the horizon of our life. Vision is an ever-ready compass and catalyst for turning our goals and purpose into a reality. To understand where we want ourselves to be, we must have a clear vision of our life. So, once you know that vision clarifies purpose, life will become more straightforward and meaningful. It’s essential to have vision and purpose because; it controls and makes our decisions, ultimately creating our lifestyle. Vision imposes discipline and ignites passion.

Our vision becomes our source of discipline. Vision causes us to sacrifice for a destination. Life becomes tight and controlled. Vision simplifies life. Vision gives us an address—a destination. The root of the destination is destiny. Our destination is our destiny.  Everyone is heading somewhere in life, but only a few people are heading somewhere on purpose.

Vision Chooses Our Friends & Lovers- If we are honest, it is mentally draining and frustrating to be around people who do not understand where they want to be or how to get there.

Vision Decides How We Spend Our Time -   Time wasted today; we cannot get back tomorrow because tomorrow is not guaranteed.  Vision will allow us to save time.

Vision Finds Our Passion -  It is not the pursuit of happiness that matters but the happiness of the pursuit. What is your “why”?  What motivates you? Why do you get up in the morning? I am referring to that all-consuming emotion that moves you forward—your juice. Vision allows us to find and harness our passion.

Vision Creates  Consistent Action -   The best way for our habits to change and take root is to be consistent with our behaviors.  Even when we cannot see the benefits, big dividends are earned when we apply a method to our madness.

Vision is not a goal. A goal is created from vision. A vision is an active and ongoing dream that we are striving to achieve.  Also,  the sin of omission applies here. Not having a vision means your vision for your life is not to have a vision. However, without a vision, the desires of our heart will persist as an irritate like a stone in our shoe we cannot get out.

Without a strong vision for the future pulling us forward, we will always return to our past.

Moving forward, please understand that our resistance to our vision's path is the discomfort of stepping into the unknown and breaking the current reality.  It takes a lot of courage to become fearlessly authentic. And it takes great faith to reach into the unknown for a better version of ourselves. The unknown is an uncomfortable and scary place undermining our pursuit of happiness.

However, we will struggle to seek only happiness in a negative stagnation loop because we are not growing. I assert that dissatisfaction and discouragement are not caused by the absence of things but by the absence of vision.

In pursuing our bold and compelling visions for the future, we must realize our happiness is not linked to our visions. Although we are always happiest on our vision's path into the unknown, our journey's destination is not always a happiness payoff. Therefore, we must balance being happy in the now with our journey of pushing into an unknown future. It is easier to diagram the idea of balancing happiness with our future vision. (see below)

The ideal state of present/future balance feels centered. Our compelling vision pulls us forward, but we're happy in the now. There’s a feeling of gratitude, growth, and joy. It’s about the journey as well as the destination.

When we are happy in pursuit of our vision, it seems as though the universe has our back. The right opportunities, ideas, and people gravitate toward us. It’s as if our happiness is rocket fuel moving us toward our vision. While experiencing this balanced state, gratitude flows from us like a river.

Let us circle back to the open, where we imagined the best possible version of ourselves. Happy, prosperous, fit, and in love with our dream partner. Once we hold that vision in our mind's eye, we can look over our horizon, believing that the impossible is possible as we take the first steps into tomorrow.

Until next time. Travel safe.