Enrich Your Life By Making it a Story to Tell

Enrich¹ Your Life By Making it a Story to Tell

 We have all heard the old adage², “Life is short, go live it.”

The problem is that it takes so many people an entire life before they start living it or not living it. It’s so easy to get stuck living the everyday mundane³ tasks instead of doing those that really make your heart sing.

We spend our lives working our jobs waiting around to live, and when that time arrives we often end up on the porch⁴ lamenting⁵ about all those things we didn’t do, while we wait around to die.

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The moments when life offers us the opportunity to experience something new we usually allow our conditioned thoughts of fear, failure and doubt to get in the way and keep us doing only what we know. This is known as the safe route, which at times is a beneficial route, but not often if you want to live an enriched⁶ life.

I believe that life is all about the memories so I want to share with you a way of thinking, or a philosophy, that I have employed throughout my life. It is a philosophy that has helped me to overcome fear and doubt in order to experience and create many new memories.

It’s simply,

‘Live your life so it’s a story to tell’.

When you think like this, fear tends to take a back seat. The driver becomes life.

‘Live your life so it’s a story to tell,’ has given me many experiences and as a result lots of insightful⁷ wisdom I can share with others.

As someone who in their teenage years was very shy and felt I had nothing to contribute or talk about, this was an essential philosophy for me to adopt in order to change the beliefs I had about myself. I felt that the more stories I created in my life then the more interesting experiences I would be able to share with others.

‘Live your life so it’s a story to tell’ has been a huge builder of courage for me. It helps to make me step up to the plate and just do whatever it is I am fearful to do, or complacent⁸ about.

“Just go and do it, it will make a great story to tell.”

As a result of this, I’ve created stories of global adventures, dare-devil experiences, profitable⁹ investments, disastrous¹⁰ investments, entrepreneurial¹¹ activities, friendships spanning¹² many countries, and the experience of new foods, cultures, music, sports and activities.

My husband, who is terrified of flights, recently hung backwards¹³ off a 192 m building in Auckland, New Zealand and then sky dived. When I asked him why he did it, he replied,

“Well, it gave me a great story to tell.”

When I asked if he thought doing the sky dive had changed him in any way, he replied “It’s certainly made me braver to try other new things and I have a lot more control over my fears now.”

I’ve also found one of the most empowering things about this philosophy, is it helps you to get over those challenging times in your life. When things go wrong for me, I often think,

“Well I guess I’ve now got a story to tell.”

This is so empowering as it allows you to get over it and drop the baggage that we would otherwise carry around with us for years.

It helps you to understand the real version of the story is now over and you can move on to better things. It allows you to learn from the mistakes and take something positive from the negative.

Enrich your life and make it rewarding. The next time your faced with a decision or an opportunity to do something a little different, out of the box, or outside your comfort zone, take control of your fears and doubts by saying,

“Why not? At least it will be a story to tell!”

How have you made your life a story to tell?

1 enrich   

vt.充实，使丰富，使富裕，使富有

参考例句：

• Some cream will enrich the sauce.在调味汁里加一些奶油会使其味道更加丰富。
• Music can enrich your life.音乐能丰富你的生活。

2 adage   

n.格言，古训

参考例句：

• But the old adage that men grow into office has not proved true in my experience.但是，根据我的经验，人们所谓的工作岗位造就人材这句古话并不正确。
• Her experience lends credence to the adage " We live and learn!"她的经验印证了一句格言: 活到老，学到老！

3 mundane   

adj.平凡的；尘世的；宇宙的

参考例句：

• I hope I can get an interesting job and not something mundane.我希望我可以得到的是一份有趣的工作，而不是一份平凡无奇的。
• I find it humorous sometimes that even the most mundane occurrences can have an impact on our awareness.我发现生活有时挺诙谐的，即使是最平凡的事情也能影响我们的感知。

4 porch   

n.门廊，入口处，走廊，游廊

参考例句：

• There are thousands of pages of advertising on our porch.有成千上万页广告堆在我们的门廊上。
• The porch is supported by six immense pillars.门廊由六根大柱子支撑着。

5 lamenting   

adj.悲伤的，悲哀的v.（为…）哀悼，痛哭，悲伤( lament的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Katydids were lamenting fall's approach. 蝈蝈儿正为秋天临近而哀鸣。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Lamenting because the papers hadn't been destroyed and the money kept. 她正在吃后悔药呢，后悔自己没有毁了那张字条，把钱昧下来！ 来自英汉文学 - 败坏赫德莱堡

6 enriched   

使富有( enrich的过去式和过去分词 )； 使富裕； 充实； 使丰富

参考例句：

• The study of science has enriched all our lives. 科学研究丰富了我们的整个生活。
• breakfast cereals enriched with vitamins 增加了维生素的早餐谷物食品

7 insightful   

adj.有深刻见解的，有洞察力的

参考例句：

• The statute is hardly a masterpiece of insightful policymaking or incisive drafting. 这个法案几乎不算一个有见识的杰作，也算不上是个透彻的草案。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法
• This is not an insightful article. It's all just filler, really. 这不是一篇很有见地的文章。只是一篇补白，仅此而已。

8 complacent   

adj.自满的；自鸣得意的

参考例句：

• We must not become complacent the moment we have some success.我们决不能一见成绩就自满起来。
• She was complacent about her achievements.她对自己的成绩沾沾自喜。

9 profitable   

adj.有益的，能带来利益的，有利可图的

参考例句：

• That business became profitable last year.那项生意去年变得很赚钱。
• The convention business is very profitable for the hotel industry.承办会议业务能给旅馆业带来很高的利润。

10 disastrous   

adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的

参考例句：

• The heavy rainstorm caused a disastrous flood.暴雨成灾。
• Her investment had disastrous consequences.She lost everything she owned.她的投资结果很惨，血本无归。

11 entrepreneurial   

adj.企业家的；企业性质的

参考例句：

• Supply-side economics was supposed to promote savings, investment, and entrepreneurial creativity. 供应经济学政策的经济应该能够提高存款，刺激投资和企业创造力。
• How developing countries should enlarge their ranks of entrepreneurial organizers is very much an open question. 发展中国家应该怎样扩大其企业组织者的队伍是一个很有争论的问题。

12 spanning   

n. 跨度, 拉线, [数]生成, 长成 动词span的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• We call such a spanning subgraph T an economical spanning subgraph. 我们称这样的生成子图T为廉价的生成子图。
• These were serious investigations, each spanning several months. 这些审查都很慎重，每一个审查项目都要用几个月的时间。

13 backwards   

adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地

参考例句：

• He turned on the light and began to pace backwards and forwards.他打开电灯并开始走来走去。
• All the girls fell over backwards to get the party ready.姑娘们迫不及待地为聚会做准备。