A few days before my 54th anniversary, May 28th, I spoke to my good friend, Joy. I had been down with bronchitis for three weeks. I was challenged to keep up with caregiving and was feeling down, not at all like myself.
The 100 Wants List
At the time, I was reading the book Master Your Mindpower. I haven’t finished it yet because it gives you assignments. It isn’t a fast read, but very interesting. One exercise was to make a list of 100 things you would like to see happen in your life. I didn’t know if that was possible. Caregiving requires a lot of time and emotional and mental energy. I had given up my former life as a speaker and writer to care for my family. I felt like I didn’t have any current goals or dreams. What few there were were hazy and far in the future. And I would be older, and then what could I really do? I was also challenged because I am at a place in my life where I am paring down, I don’t want more things.
Joy and I are alike, and so she understands how crossing things off my daily list is satisfying to me, but neither of us wants to spend the rest of our lives just crossing the mundane off a list. We both want goals and dreams. Joy knows what hers are and is bringing them to fruition with a house full of teens and young adults, but I was stumped. I know I’m a powerful and positive force for good, but after this long illness, I felt like quitting. I had this thought rolling around in my weary brain, “Who cares what you say anyway?” See, no matter how much you know, you can still visit the cellar. How long you stay there is what matters.:) Talking with Joy helped me climb the stairs to the light!
She reminded me that I am in the Impact phase of my life, and that’s why I feel some dissatisfaction. I have a beautiful mission statement, and I know that caring for my family matters. But it gets old. You know what I am talking about. This dilemma doesn’t go away just because your kids grow up.
A Beautiful Statement!
Joy listened to my concerns about the list and then thoughtfully said, “Being in the trenches can be gray, bland, and boring. It matters and is important, but we need something to light our light. We need to get out of the trench for a moment and see the sunset.” That was an amazing statement. My daughter Jodie, who has four teens, one with severe cerebral palsy, and works full time, stops each evening, goes outside, sits in a chair, and watches the sunset.
I took Joy’s beautiful statement to heart. It helped me work out a stinky story I was working on. I knew it was an untrue story and that I needed to rewrite it, but I wasn’t sure how. Here was the story – “I’m caregiving. I don’t know how long I’ll be doing that. Therefore, I can’t make plans. I do not have any current dreams or goals.” As I said, stinky! But Joy’s comment moved me forward. I began my list.
I wanted to see if I could do it. I haven’t reached 100 things, but I am up to 66. This isn’t bad for a 75-year-old who didn’t think she had any dreams or goals. I was amazed and happy with myself.
Want or Desire?
Not long after talking with Joy, I had a call with my friend Mary Black. The list came up again. She shared an interesting thought with me, which she read in the book A Happy Pocket Full of Money by David Cameron Gikandi. Gikandi begins his book with quantum physics and then teaches about infinite wealth and abundance through giving and fulfilling our purpose in life.
One chapter is titled Want Not. Desire, But Never Want. He defined the word want from the dictionary– “to be without. To lack, to be destitute or needy. A defect of character, of fault, to be absent, to be deficient or lacking.” He said if you’re in a state of wanting, you never get what you want. He suggested removing this word from our vocabulary and instead inserting desire or intend, depending on the situation. I changed my 100 Wants list to 100 Desires.
According to the book Master Your Mindpower, the next step is to narrow the list down to the top 10 you want to achieve in the next 12 months, and then the top 3 to do in 30 days. Because many items on my list are about changing my way of being, and I’ve been working on some of them for years, you can’t set a timeline, like 30 days or a year. Others, such as travel, are on hold while I care for those who can’t travel. But some I can move on now, and I will contemplate what to do. I don’t know how this is going to play out for me yet.
Here is what I do know – making the list was eye-opening and freeing. I am alive. I have desires and goals. They were there all the time; I just needed to let them out. This list has buoyed me up. I look at it and add to it. It makes me happy.
This exercise may help you, too if you’re surrounded by littles or teens, have a demanding, all-consuming job, a debilitating illness, etc. Sometimes it can feel like we have no life. Making this list showed me that I do, and can help you see the same, no matter your current circumstances.
Here are 25 things from my list:
• Lose the TONE and speak lovingly and kindly.
• Have extra and to spare so I can share.
• Remain calm, even when triggered.
• Care for Don, Mom, and help with Maggie as long as needed.
• Think of others even when it isn’t convenient.
• Find moments of happiness every day.
• Get my right hip replaced.
• Get better every day, in every way.
• Study something every day and incorporate the good I learn.
• Have $10,000 in savings.
• Feel good about and work well with money.
• End each day satisfied that I did my best, even if it didn’t match my daily worksheet.
• Continue to increase/nurture relationships with other women for a coming day of need.
• Speak Spanish.
• Take painting lessons.
• Dance, any kind my hip can manage.
• Write a second book.
• Visit Maine.
• Go to Missouri and see Jenny and her homestead.
• Finish my study of all 2200 scriptures about Christ in the scriptures.
• Feel happiness, the kind that isn’t about satisfaction because of work well done.
• Go to California and spend a week with Andrew’s family.
• Go to Washington and spend a week with Kate and her family.
• Attend a church service at Gracewoods, in Missouri
• Take a trip to see Marie and her family soon.
As you can see, there aren’t many ‘things’ on the list, and many are changes in my way of being. At this juncture in my life, that’s where my desires lie: becoming better every day, in every way. This is a truth statement I repeat out loud daily.
The things on my list of desires matter to me, and I have time to accomplish them in my life. Some are restricted for now, like going to Maine, but many have nothing to do with time; more to do with intention and choice.
I’m interested to see how many I cross off before I die. Knowing me and how much I love crossing things off my list, I suspect it will be all of them. : )
Making this list of desires and looking at it every day helps me step out of the trench for a moment and see the sunset. It has made a difference.