Clouds got in the way... Not anymore!

Obstacles are so annoying. They do, however, become good scape goats for not getting things done, right? The first verse of one of my all time favorite ballads: Both Sides Now; by: Joni Mitchell, uses clouds in a metaphor about obstacles. Those of you that know me well have come to realize; that it is often difficult for me to make an analogy about anything without throwing in a reference to a Joni Mitchell song. I digress. Mitchell discusses what we see in the clouds as children, when our innocent imaginations can go wild. Later on in life when our imaginations become more responsible, the clouds become things that: "rain and snow on everything." "Clouds got in the way," she wrote and sang.

Obstacles, whether they be clouds, red lights, low budget, or any number of things that may stand between us and what we want and need; are simply just things that we have to endure. As my birthday approches I think of so many things that I should have done from one year to the next. I feel like I have two New Year's: the real New Year on January 1, and the one on September 16. Each of these dates usually become times to celebrate and reflect for me. Without fail, there are always things that have kept me from doing this or that when I look back from one year to the next.

This year as my birthday approaches I feel a new self-improvement project coming on. Eliminating obstacles! I just feel like life is too short and too valuable to waste it letting things stop me. Instead of stopping when these boulders fall onto my path, if I can't climb over or go around them, I will be forced to bust them up and move them aside. Not so long ago, when I was a young kid running along life's path, overflowing with dreams and plans. There were no such things as obstacles in those ideas - nothing stopped me from dreaming big and reaching high. That said, I think it would be a waste of so much of my own time if I didn't reverse my own negative energy. I have to take all those negative thoughts about the things that stand in my way and use that energy on getting past them. Replacing complainging and quitting with action. All my little unfinished personal projects should definitely benefit from this new way of thinking.

I have a list a mile long of all the things that I want to do with my life and my time. For the most part I am pretty good at checking these things off my list, slowly but surely. As I begin to turn the page on my own year, more personally than ever I seek positivity, accomplishment, and peace. Everyone deserves that.

"Come with me and they won't see us for the dust!" Frank Lloyd Wright