Living An Extraordinary Life

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I’m the sort of person that always strives to live my life the way I wanted. I think we all imagine that we will experience lives that are amazing and far from ordinary. I think there is nothing wrong with this. Having something to stretch for, to shoot for a dream, is a great thing. For me, one of my dreams is to practice medicine in places around the world where access to medical care is not readily available. Ideally, I’d like to settle somewhere in the rural US after a few years working abroad. I don’t know if this dream is possible, or if my life will come to resemble anything close that which I dream of.

What I do know is that if I didn’t have the dream I would be lost. There are so many ways to go in life. Having a dream is like having a GPS on your dashboard. Decision points come up in our lives and ask us to pick a direction that might alter our path slightly. I picture these points like a toll booth at a motorway entrance. Do you take the motorway north or south? Do you take the south-bound motorway since the traffic report on the radio said there was construction and delays for north-bound traffic? Your trusty GPS will prompt you to go on way or another. After passing through enough toll booths in our lives we begin to carve out a direction for ourselves, our final destination becomes clearer.

All of this leads back to living an extraordinary life. When faced with a choise, a toll booth in the road, we would do well to consider two things:

1.) How will this decision get me closer to my goal?

2.) Will taking one direction over another better get me to my goal?

If both ways move you towards your end goal the question you can now ask is, “Which direction will give me a great story to tell?” Aim to collect great stories as you journey through life. I think you’ll find that, when you look back, you will have led an extraordinary life indeed.