To Be The Best You Can

Somehow this thought had been going around my head for ages and today it surfaced again and it's like a wee voice inside of my head.

It's saying if you could do anything you wanted to do, go anywhere (or live anywhere) you wanted to - what would you do?  

What's your dream?  What's have you always wanted to do but never got around to it?  What would you, given no limitations, want to do?

And that's the whole essence really of where I am and where my 4 week + odyssey has now taken me.  

I've spent a long while thinking and reflecting and now have most (not all) of the pieces together but these aren't nice logical elements I can stick in a spreadsheet and analyse because these go deeper and are more emotional that that and look at a deeper realisation of who I actually am and proposes a vision of where I may like to go or the possibility of fulfilling a vision of ideal.

We can do practically anything we want to - if we put our minds to it.  For a long time I've held myself back and played a very conservative card.  I've done everything that modern society expects me to do.  Got married, worked hard, got a house, got kids, put them through University, gave them a good start in life and provided all of the basic needs of physical, ethical, open mindedness, fairness and charity.  So is my work here done?

There's a part of me that has been deeply troubled for a long time and that's what is there left for me to do and also - in some peculiar way - what am I going to do now that I've survived Bladder Cancer?  As my friend - who no longer has his Prostate - he can never get Prostate Cancer again because he doesn't have one.  Me?  Well I can get Bladder Cancer again and that's got to play right at the back of your mind and if not all then most of the time.  I'd like to think I'm going to get another 30 years on this planet and that would be grand.  I look after myself and now eat the right things and have begun to exercise.  There's more weight to lose, there is blood pressure to bring down but other than that I am pretty fit and healthy and I feel physically very strong - I can bash out press ups and wall presses without to much difficulty and can almost touch my toes again.  I don't have any other major ailments that my friends appear to have so have to be grateful for that.

So what exactly am I wittering on about you may ask?  Well it is the feeling inside of me that I there's more, more to do, more to see, more to achieve and perhaps something different.

Just over 4 weeks ago I took that first step.  I can't even tell you what a roller coaster of a ride it has been.  I had a day of such deep depression I couldn't believe it, it was like having gone back 5 or 6 years.  I've had days of amazing highs too.  I've tried and not always succeeded to keep my analytical brain behind in decisions and actions trying to just make decisions based on the enjoyment of something and things like to just go with the flow and to live life.  Somedays that has worked really well, other days not so well.  

What's going through my head now is that perhaps it's time to stop ignoring the wee little voice.  To have my Ray Kinsella moment (Ray Kinsella is the central character in Field of Dreams).  "If you build it he will come" resonates very loudly with me at the moment.  I said before that I'd just like to up sticks and run away somewhere, go some place and just setup afresh, live a simple life and an enjoyable one, perhaps write my book, paint my paintings, create some music,  read my vast collection of books, finally do my History Degree, get a local job and just live.  I've had enough of the high life and feel it's time to consider whether it is possible to just take out all the complications in life (many made by myself I grant you) and just settle right down and get on with enjoying life not fighting it all the time.

Then, and only then I suppose can I assure myself that in that I did the best I can be.