As we go through life we build momentum.  Our decisions and actions produce results.  Those results may lead to success or failure.  When we find failure, we have the opportunity to learn how to do things better and avoid those failings in the future.  Provided we learn from our mistakes, we build success on our previous failure and success.  Over time we can find ourselves living the life we created through our hard work and corrections made along the way.

Here’s the thing, when we obtain the life we yearned for, we may find it’s not exactly what we understood it to be.  We simply can not know all the details of what it will be like until we get there.  For example, if we yearn to create a family and have a nice home, there’s a price.  There’s always a price.  To be successful maintaining a home and family we need resources.  This often means both parents working.  If only one parent works, then we may not be able to have the big house we originally had in our vision.  As we work, we invest our primary resource time generating the necessary cash flow for living and saving for the future.  This time at work takes time away from our family, home and friends we used to have.  Unwittingly, by pursuing our dreams, we find ourselves constrained by our responsibilities and managing the multitude of constraints to keep things going as best we can.  We feel we don’t have time to do the things we want or even need to do. We start deciding what not to do and learn what priorities are.  We balance our responsibilities and commitments with our available time and energy. This precarious balance is affected by our decisions and may be tipped easily leading us to stress and suffering or satisfaction and joy.

The situations we find ourselves are due to our previous decisions and actions and the interaction and response from our environment.  Allowing ourselves to regret and hold on to the past ways of thinking, we become the victim of our own success.  However, if we can realize we are the reason and purpose of our current situation, we can take a different perspective and orient ourselves to our present conditions.  We are the benefactors, stewards and recipients of our own doings.  Holding ourselves accountable for our actions, we realize we are the ones that can change our situation if it is not what we currently want it to be no matter what we may have wanted it to be in the past.  This is the crux of our evolving lives.  It’s our responsibility to orient ourselves to the present and do something about our situation whether it’s good or bad, whether we are the stewards or victims.  And, the first step is to realize our “hand” in making our lives what they are.