A Wish List for Perfect Days by Michael Larsen
If your days were perfect, what would they be like? Your list will be different, but it might include waking in early morning light, after a good night’s sleep, next to your beloved, eager to start the day and knowing the best way to do it having harmonious personal and professional goals that motivate you to do whatever it takes to achieve them putting short-term goals in the service of long-term achievements with enduring value living as simply as possible, as if every day were your last knowing what enough is and earning it with daily effort.
- Loving what you do so much you don’t notice time
- Spending time with a family that is a source of love, renewal, encouragement, and wisdom
- Earning and enjoying the respect, admiration, friendship, and support of everyone you know
- Having a home that has charm, character, and a garden, and that is filled with love, light, color, art, music, and books, and that enlightens, entertains, and inspires everyone who enters
- Sharing simple, varied, beautiful, colorful, delicious, nutritious, locally produced food
- Having a spiritual practice that brings you peace of mind
- Being at peace with your significance in 400 billion galaxies
- Living in a place that’s safe, good for raising children and provides privacy, diversity, a sense of community, natural beauty, a creative environment, access to culture and kindred spirits, local and independent sources of products and services, effective schools and governance, full employment, freedom from want, a climate without extremes, planned growth that enhances the quality of life, and the freedom to live as you wish
- Filling your days with challenges that inspire your creativity
- Renewing your sense of wonder at the beauty and grandeur of nature
- Expressing your gratitude through giving and service
- Having the time and money you need to devote to the people, ideas, projects, and organizations you’re passionate about
- Enjoying the calm and freedom of obscurity
- Learning about what excites you and what you need to know
- laughing and making others laugh
- Exercising your mind and body
- Reading books you love without being disturbed with Bach or Mozart providing the soundtrack
- Working in your garden growing the fruits, vegetables, and flowers
- Minimizing waste and using only what you need
- Understanding the value of people, information, and experiences and giving them the attention they deserve
- Making decisions knowing that that money, technology, and other forms of power are great tools but poor masters
- Balancing
–desire and necessity
–time and money
–thought and feeling
–serving others and yourself
–sitting and moving
–screen time and the rest of your life
–work, home, and leisure
–planning, flexibility, and spontaneity
–imbalances created by the need to focus on an activity
- Staying informed about what’s important
- Meeting your responsibilities as a citizen of a neighborhood, city, state, country, and the world
- Transforming anger about problems into positive action
- Needing no contact with the legal, medical, or corporate world, or government, except to try to improve them
- Having patience with others and yourself
- Seeing problems as opportunities
- Being debt-free, meeting your obligations, and saving for the future you want
- Helping strangers who can’t help you
- Celebrating your achievements
- Making love as if it were the first time and the last
- Ending your day knowing you’ve done all you can as well as you can
- Renewing yourself with uninterrupted sleep that begins the moment you snuggle your beloved
May your days be as close to perfect as you can make them. Like a rose, you were born to bloom. Now is the time to start doing whatever is best for you and becoming who you were born to be. As Anne Frank wrote: “It is never too late to start doing the right thing.”
Please feel free to share this list. I hope it inspires you and the people in your life to make a list and share it. This list will always be a work in progress, and I’d like to learn from yours. Many thanks for your time.
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Michael Larsen-Elizabeth Pomada Literary Agents
Helping Writers Launch Careers Since 1972
larsenpoma@aol.com / www.larsenpomada.com
415-673-0939 / 1029 Jones Street / San Francisco, 94109
The 10th San Francisco Writers Conference:
A Celebration of Craft, Commerce & Community
February 14-17, 2013 / www.sfwriters.org / sfwriterscon@aol.com
Mike’s blog: http://sfwriters.info/blog @SFWC / www.facebook.com/SanFranciscoWritersConference
San Francisco Writers University:
Where Writers Meet and You Learn
Laurie McLean, Dean
Free classes / www.sfwritersu.com / sfwritersu@gmail.com / @SFWritersU
