Are you a What If? or a What Is! person.

This morning on my way to work, I heard an excerpt on CBC Radio that caused me to pause and reflect. I only managed to catch the tail end of an interview pertaining to Gloria Vanderbilt. The person described Gloria as a person who was excited about the possibilities of her & now, as a person who had a voracious appetite to experience the time and place she was currently living in. This was contrasted by indicating she did not waste any energy on pondering what her life could be like in another time or place or in a different set of circumstances. Poignantly, they summed up her approach to life as a “What IS!” person rather than a “What IF?” person.

What a difference one little letter and a single piece of punctuation makes. Profound I thought. I really like these simple statements that drift into my life unannounced as little grenades of thought provocation. I  would like to think that I am a “What IS!” person. I truly would like to believe that I do try to seize the passion out of each day without pining for things, time, money, and other items I do not have. “What IF? games can be a wonderful theoretical exercise, but I rather feel it is an unproductive way to wade through life.

If your current reality is not palatable, seek to create a different / better reality with a bias towards action. Willing something to be is ineffectual, you must be an active architect in the building of your world.

No matter how absolutely brilliant we think we are in the course of living our lives, we all backslide. I want to keep this elegant little reminder handy to use as a cross to ward off the “What IF?” vampire from sucking the productivity and enjoyment of my life.

Thanks Gloria Vanderbilt for an idea that is fashionable.