Our life is filled with borders—those lines, both tangible and symbolic, that delineate our lives. Some of these are real, while others are imagined. Some are immovable; others are flexible. Some are imposed upon us, while others are self-imposed. How we behave in relation to these borders can have a great impact on what kind of lives we lead and how successful we are in achieving our goals.
How many people in the world do you trust completely?
People you trust not to lie to you, cheat you, or steal from you—this is garden-variety trust.
How many people do you trust enough for you to share who you really are? How many people do you know in your heart have your back? How many people could you trust with your life?
Try to list those people.
For many of us, the number of people like that in our lives can be counted on one hand, and the truth is we are lucky if we have one or two. But before we start weeping silently into our oatmeal, let’s think about the dynamics of what it takes to be trustworthy.
Each of us has to trust ourselves first. If we don’t, we lack the fundamental basis for trust. We have to trust ourselves that we will act in our own best interest. We have to trust that we will create a life for ourselves that we can use as a foundation to do great things. We have to trust that we will give ourselves a stable emotional base.
Make your life about you.
On the surface, this may sound selfish or self-centered, but if you dig deeper into what this means, it should mean just the opposite. Putting a mark on the world that is uniquely yours. Making your life about you means bringing your own special set of talents, passions, and your own energy to everything that you do. By doing this, you will be giving the best of yourself to the world.
Be generous, but bring your generosity to bear in ways that are important and meaningful to you. You might say, “We should be generous to all those in need, not only those people and causes that we care about.” But if you think about it, it is not possible to be generous to everyone who needs it. We all have to make choices, and if our generosity is targeted and focused, it will be much more effective, and we will be more motivated to be generous.
The connections we make to people throughout our lives are our doors into the world.
Depending on the nature of our connections, we can have many doors leading to interesting and exciting places, or we can have only a few doors, but all leading to places where we love to be and where we want to spend our time.
As we live our lives we will always interact with people. We make friends in school, we talk to neighbors, we work with people, and we develop relationships. Some of those relationships are perfunctory or just a matter of convenience; others are deep and long lasting.
Connections can be developed and maintained in an ad hoc way, or they can be based on our needs and desires. Do you find yourself spending time with people because of obligations or because these people make you happy? How we define our connections to people can help us get the most out of our relationships. And like any of the factors that define our lives, the more we understand our connections, the better we will be at making and maintaining those connections that are meaningful and helpful.
You exist, every second of every day.
What does that mean to you?
What is the nature of your existence? What is the impact of your presence in the world?
We are an inherent part of whatever situation we find ourselves in and are responsible for how interesting (or uninteresting) it is. We can make life exciting, inspiring, and fun—we just have to remember to exist, in a meaningful way, wherever we are.