I have a milestone birthday this year.  A birthday with a zero on the end.

The exact day isn’t for a few months but I’m already reflecting a little and it’s unbelievable how much I’ve evolved, especially over the last 10 years.

It makes me appreciate our capacity and ability to change and, at the same time, reminds me of how many years I spent convincing myself that I couldn’t change.  Other people could change, but not me.  My life circumstances were so “special” that I was just locked into the corporate job life and that’s how it was.

That story, that other people could change but not me, I hung onto that like an addict.  When people saw my sadness and fatigue and suggested that maybe I should make a change I’d reply, “there’s no other way” and I believed it.

Do you want to know what else I could have said?  What I was truly saying without realizing I was saying it?  “I have no power.”

Do you do that?  Are there things in your life that you wish you could change but think you can’t?  Do you have all the reasons lined up to explain why you can’t?  Do you feel defensive?  If so… I get it!

George Bernard Shaw said Life Isn’t About Finding Yourself.  Life Is About Creating Yourself.

That, my friends, is the part I was missing.

I didn’t free myself from the corporate handcuffs for decades because I didn’t understand I have the power to create whatever I want.  I believed I was powerless.

In my quest to fit in, I architected my life based on the criteria defined by society and I spent my days doing instead of creating.

I didn’t understand I that I have the power to design whatever I want with my life.

I, you, us – we can make whatever we want with our time here on this planet.  Sure, it takes dedication and persistence and tenacity and grit, but we have the power and the creative genius to do it.

Whatever our lives look like right now, we created.  And we can un-create. And we can re-create.

It took me a few birthdays with a zero on the end to fully understand.

I’ve never felt so liberated.