What would you do?

There was once a TV show called This is Your Life. Each week, an unsuspecting celebrity would be lured by some ruse to a location near the studio. He would then be surprised with the news that he was to be the featured guest. Next he was escorted into the studio, and one by one people significant in the guest's life would be brought out to offer anecdotes. At the end of the show family members and friends would gather about the guest who would then be presented with some gifts.

Viewers got to glimpse amazing lives of others. 

Now through social media we are able to do this on a daily basis. Sadly, though, almost every day I read how one of my friends is stuck. Stuck with fear in a life they are not living.

The settle for less than spectacular held back by their own narrow opinion of their capabilities.

I admit it is all too easy to limit ourselves to our narrowed perception of who we are and what we are capable of. It is fun to dream about what if, but scary to think about what if became reality.

Unless forced to changed by someone else's decision we tend to stay put. When someone kicks us out of our own life we tend to fight and scream.

"Just imagine me a year ago..." she said to me. "Had things not forced me to leave, I would never be doing what I have always wanted to. What a blessing in disguise!"

She worked for me a few years ago and when I left, she left. With her sudden free time she ran for a public office and won. Now, she is doing what she had always wanted to do.

Another friend got the courage to step away from her abusive marriage and just opened her own shop. Another lifelong dream now reality.

To many of us get caught in the day-to-day dread. We get up tired, not wanting to go to work, we go through all the motions and another day passes. We want a different day. Not because we feel it is greener on the other side, but because we are not living out our passions.

Desires of who we are burn within each of us. We are equipped and created to become..,, we often are mistaken about how we think these desires will be lived out.

"If you had permission to do what you really wanted to do, what would you do? Don't ask how, that will cut your desires off at the knees. How is never the right question, how is a faithless question. It means unless I can see my way clearly, I won't believe it; won't venture forth."

I often think of my life as a canvas and each day a new part is added to my final masterpiece. There are lots of nasty old dark blotches, but vibrant sprays of color fill most of my canvas. Small circles of bright color explode and pop as I live out my passions.

And there will come a day when I will see my masterpiece and be told, "Sarah, this is your life."

I cry today thinking of the just how beautiful that masterpiece will be.

No regrets, facing my own created fears, bumps and bruises along the way-but never kept down. 

If you gave yourself permission to do what you really wanted to do, what would you do?