Patterns – Designing Lives
This year I have visited and photographed many well-groomed gardens. These are places where not just hours or days but years have gone into their architecture and design. As beautiful as the gardens are, the unseen work behind the scenes to keep them groomed and tidy is unknown to most of their admirers. I believe this to be the same with many people who have worked countless hours, days and years to perfect certain aspects of their lives. I know a few whom I admire tremendously as I view their designed lives that reflect amazing patterns of choice.
Some people look at individuals with great accomplishments and minimize their efforts by stating how lucky they have been. I believe that just as beautiful structures or gardens are built with careful planning, design and hard work are needed for a person to reach full potential. By implementing good patterns of action and having borders and boundaries, a person can keep out the unwanted pests. Just as weeds can encroach and take over good plants that are unprotected without applied barriers, we too could leave ourselves vulnerable to be taken over by unwanted difficulties if we leave pathways open that invite them in.
It is repetitive patterns of choice, also known as habits, that dictate the direction a person will go. Accomplishments are attained when one recognizes and lets go of old, damaging patterns and chooses to replace them with patterns more conducive to their goals. If you see repetitive patterns in your own life, you should ask yourself, “Which ones serve me well, and which ones create hell?” By choosing to let go of the bad and replacing them with those that will serve you well, you can change your path, your future and quite possibly your eternity.
Sometimes it takes looking at the patterns others have made to give us the vision for ourselves. I am currently reading a book written by Petra Nemcova, a supermodel from the Czech Republic who shares her patterns of choice. At the age of eighteen she left the safe environment of her parent’s home and stepped into a high-powered life in Milan, Italy. Explaining how she survived by setting boundaries and sticking to them, she writes, “. . . for the first time in my life, I didn’t have my parents on my back. Guess what I did? I partied. Two or three times a week I went to clubs with my new Italian friends from the fashion industry and danced my feet off. They warned me to be careful in the clubs, especially with drinking. Their advice was always the same: Buy your own drink, and if you put it down, don’t touch it again.” She goes onto explain that “. . . people put drugs in your drinks and terrible things could happen. You could wake up somewhere with someone you didn’t know and not have a clue what you did.” She continues on by saying, “I don’t drink (alcohol) – I like to be in control of things.” Petra writes that she knew of girls who had fallen victim to such predators and had gotten into big trouble. Their naïveté to the dangers that surrounded them was part of the problem. I also believe that if you do not want to be preyed upon by the wolves, do not go to their dens. Instead of creating a pattern of partying at clubs, putting themselves in less dangerous environments, such as coffee shops, may have kept them safer, but nothing is guaranteed.
Once you address your dangerous patterns and make the choice to put them behind you, you can than plan your future one stepping stone at a time by putting into place those behaviors that will bring you to higher ground rather than tripping you up. It is your life to create; you are the designer, and the hard work will be worth it in the end, especially when you come to a place you are happy to be and know that luck did not get you there.
In Other’s Words:
“If you continue doing what you’ve always done, you will get what you have always got.”
~Unknown~