Where I Stand

While I am proud of what I've accomplished with music and songwriting, what I'm most proud of is my happiness. ~ Jewel

by Pete Ferguson

The past year or so has been an amazing journey. It has also been very personal - which makes writing here more difficult and why I've slacked off a bit.

It is easy to post a contrite "why you should ..." blog, but much more difficult to dig deep and reveal the inner workings of one's mind, heart, and soul.

The posts that are most popular seem to be the "seven reasons why you should ..." or "ten things everyone should do better."

But the reality is that I'm likely not going to do all seven, or ten, or three. I'm going to incorporate what works best for me.

And that is where happiness lies - in our ability to be ourselves, to be in the moment, and to have a vision of what we want to do and move in that direction.

Happiness is always there with us in the moment. We just have to make the shift and choose to see it ... But being happy doesn’t come from the things we achieve or how far we’ve come. It comes from being present and enjoying the journey. ~ Peter Clemens

Mistakes come easily. That's just life. We like to hold our heroes up high and pretend they did not make mistakes - or that they made big ones early in life but then turned it all around and never looked back.

But is that really reality? I've met multi millionaires who've said their biggest goal in life is to have a family that gets along better.

I've seen senior executives who's greatest quest in life is happiness in their personal life. The success as work is a mere byproduct of that quest.

And what I've learned is simple. You have to be your best self.

I say best self because being just "yourself" can lead to a lot of base behavior. The natural man or woman would likely sleep all day, eat a lot, and be quite selfish.

To be your best self requires momentum towards a vision of how your individual contributions to life will make a better life for those around you.

And for me, the journey does start right back where I started - with myself. I have big dreams: to transform the security world, to reveal the Tooele, Utah, valley as a great music hotbed of talent, which it is.

But the most important dreams I have are to see my children succeed. Just as my father worked hard to improve our lives over his own, I too want my children to have access to things which were out of my reach. I want them to be firm in who they are, and to help them realize their dreams with more ease - but not without learning from the trials and obstacles that will surely be in their way.

I want the words "can't" and "impossible" to be a laughing matter and not a debilitating roadblock and dream killer.

And at work I want to extend that vision to others who are just starting their career and may feel stuck in an accidental career. I want to pave the way for them to be successful quicker, faster, and smarter than I have been. So they can take the torch I've carried and move it much farther into the future.

And that is where I stand.

Related articles

• Where Does the Sidewalk Finally End? (learnactshare)
• Why I Stopped Chasing Happiness (thechangeblog.com)