Your Destiny Sings In Your Ears At the Darnedest Times

By Frosty Wooldridge

Each time I stand up in front of an audience, I invite every person in the room to accept himself or herself unconditionally.

(Spirit of St. Louis with Charles Lindbergh flew over the Atlantic Ocean to fulfill a dream. What dream has your name on it?) Photography by Frosty Wooldridge

“You are a one-time miracle of the universe,” I boldly state. “Accept your height, weight, build, looks, hair, personality, mind, spirit and, well, everything about you. That’s the first step.”

In this current, high-speed world, loaded with cell phones, glitz and glamour movie stars, along with obnoxious amounts of wealth—it’s easy to look at your own life in comparison.

Hint: delete the word “comparison” from your vocabulary.

You manifest a one-time-only combination of DNA never before seen in the universe and never again to be repeated. Pretty astounding stuff, don’t you think?

Let’s take it a step further. No other creature on this planet can do what you do: think, create, choose and manifest anything your mind conceives.

For example, Leonardo de Vinci painted the Mona Lisa. A one time expression by the only man in the universe who could conceive of and paint such a work of art! Picasso’s whacky mind created some of the wildest and weirdest paintings on the planet. The Wright Brothers disobeyed all the pundits to construct a flying machine guaranteed not to fly. But it flew into the wild blue yonder. Eventually, that first flight found humanity flying to the moon.

Walt Disney created Disneyland, Epcot and Disneyworld. Susan B. Anthony created the suffragettes. Jane Goodall studied the gorillas. Ernest Shackleton attempted to walk to the South Pole in 1914 with no radio assistance or emergency aid.

What’s the one item they all enjoy in the history books? Answer: they pursued something that burned inside them. They chased a dream until it became their reality.

Hint: a dream takes hours of practice before it becomes reality. Some books say that anyone who wants to master a certain dream must spend 10,000 hours practicing their craft. A guitarist must practice daily. A writer must write seven days a week. An artist must stroke his or her brush on the canvas for 10,000 hours. A jewelry maker must spend countless hours playing with creative ideas—before coming into the realm of expert or designer.

True story: once a farm boy decided to go to college. While attending classes, he studied to become a teacher. All the while, he kept writing in his diary. He loved to write. Once he became a teacher, they paid him so poorly that he learned to drive a long haul furniture truck in the summers to make ends meet.

He recorded his travels. In reality, he wanted to be a writer.

Many of his customers said, “You don’t seem to fit the truck driver mold. What are you actually trying to do with your life?”

“In reality, I am a writer temporarily driving a truck to chase my dreams of becoming an author of adventure books,” he said. “I work 70 plus hours a week loading furniture and driving so I can earn enough to get to my real life.”

“That’s not surprising,” his customers said.

During the years that followed, he traveled extensively around the world. He racked up 10,000 hours of travel. He jotted down notes of his world meanderings. He snapped pictures. He refined his craft.

When his first travel book published, he broke down in tears of joy. He laughed. He celebrated. He yelled. He fulfilled his self-created destiny.

Hints for you to live into your chosen destiny:

—Realize that what you do in your spare time usually gives you a hint to what you really like to do in life.
—Whatever your dream, chase it with daily mental, emotional and physical energy.
—Put in your 10,000 hours with a sense of gusto, passion and flair.
—Get help along the way. Read books from others that share your passion for a particular path: computer programmer, creator of computer games, ski instructor, scuba diver, adventure traveler, parent, scholar, athlete, nurse and 10,000 other avenues that lead to your destiny.

In the end, you make your life. You make your choices. You make your destiny. Now get out there and make it happen.

E-Mail Frosty: frostyw@juno.com