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It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living. – Echkart Tolle, from The Power of Now (Tweet this!)
Home again. Visited 10+ different cities/sites in about two weeks all throughout Italy, and now slowly been getting back into the normal rituals until the next trip.
Florence was by far my favorite. But this was only until the conclusion of the trip—which ended with the beautiful wedding of my close friends in Ravello—a small town on the Amalfi Coast.
It was magical. The scenery and architecture is the stuff of Oscar winning romantic films. Pulling into the square with our quintessential Italian driver Salvatore is already a memory I’m sure I’ll tell my future grandchildren about over a glass of Chianti Classico.
My I’ve made it moment.
As a child I remember dreaming of a trip to the Amalfi Coast and imagining myself racing through the mountains in a Ferrari with a massive smile on my face, thinking “I’ve made it!”. After seeing the windy roads fit for nothing more than a miniature Fiat I can now see that was an awful idea, but the trip was still incredibly significant.
Do you have an “I’ve made it” moment like this in your mind?
Instead, it was during a walk through the ancient, mazy streets of Ravello that I took the time to reflect on the trip and its meaning. I recorded my thoughts (literally out loud), and then journaled about it some more to ensure thoughts and memory stayed with me.
The big takeaway.
I’ll address this upfront and directly: there is no moment when you can truly say “I’ve made it”. In fact, it’s almost certain that the more you wait for that special day, the more disappointed you’ll be by the time it comes.
Goals and milestones are great, but they should be used as a tool for exercising your inherent need for growth (not competition!). What’s more important is creating memories and continuously living like a fulfilled rockstar, which is like mixing a state of appreciation and with a let’s get weird crazy fun attitude.
Furthermore, it’s imperative that you are doing something to positively impact the lives of others. This shouldn’t wait until you’ve made it, and this is where most people go wrong. Believing that once you have it all—financial freedom, the ultimate lifestyle, the dream woman/man, the perfect career—that you’ll finally begin to contribute something is wrong.
What makes you think you’ll suddenly change the entire foundation of your thoughts, words, and actions? You won’t. We must begin now to both create the habit and begin seeing the truth. True masters know that everything they give out comes right back to them.
If we (all life) is truly all one, then aren’t we actually giving to ourselves?
All that matters is deciding who you are, and then just taking steps to experience that. We’ve already made it. It’s just a matter of living that way.
After seeing the Colosseum in Rome I revisited some ancient wisdom from nearly 2,000 years ago:
Our life is what our thoughts make it. – Marcus Aurelius, from Meditations (Tweet this!)
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Photo credit: Amalfi Coast—CC license
Do you have an I’ve made it moment? I’d love to hear about it. More importantly, I’d love to know if this post has changed your thinking around this topic and how you’ll move forward now.
