18 Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.
Helen Keller, who was blind, said:” The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision”.
After having practiced law for well over a decade, as well as just observing people in general, one thing that I have seen consistently is that few people have a vision for their life. Vision involves far more than having a to-do list of things that need to be done each day. Where are you headed? Where do you want to be in a specific amount of time? 5 years? 10 years? 20 years?
Figuring out your vision can seem overwhelming. However, it is critical to achieving your purpose in life. As an attorney and mother of four, I completely understand how busy we all are. We rush from place to place. We have to get our work done. We have deadlines. We have bills to pay. We have grocery shopping to do. We have laundry to wash. We need to get oil changes. We have to help children with homework.
These are all very important things to do and they are necessary. However, there is a bigger vision that we need to grasp on to. These smaller to-dos have a place and fit into the bigger vision, but they may not be all that fits into the larger picture.
Mark Twain said (paraphrase)that he could help anyone achieve their goals, but he rarely found anyone that knew what their goals were.
When I meet with potential clients, one of the first things I ask (after their NAME) is “What brings you in?” In other words, what prompted this meeting? What are we planning for?
We should know what problem we need to solve, what are we strategizing for, where do we want to eventually be? I can’t help someone unless I know this critical information. Everything that we discuss, everything we plan, our whole strategy is built around knowing the result.
There are different strategies for different end results. There are different planning techniques to use once we know what our focus is. We want to incorporate the RIGHT technique and strategy for a particular result. For example, if we are planning to protect assets for Veteran Benefits or Medicaid, then we use one strategy. If we are planning for Incapacity or Probate Avoidance, we would use a slightly different approach. We would NEVER blindly start down a path without knowing where we want to be. That would be foolish.
This legal planning concept is a smaller subset of overall life planning. However, if we think about this in general terms for our life, we know all too well that too many times we are walking (and sometimes rushing) down life’s path without really thinking where that path will lead us. Do we really want to be on that particular road or do we need to take the next exit?
Do you know that there are cruises to nowhere? The cruise ships circle around and don’t head to any particular destination. They just eventually go back to where they started.
This is like the Israelites who wandered in the desert for 40 years when it really could have taken them a week or two to make the journey to the Promised Land. Their journey lasted a horribly long time because of their unbelief. What a sad and depressing story. What wasted time and resources.
A whole generation perished in the desert and did not enter the Promised Land because of their unbelief. They had no vision and could not see themselves actually entering into the land. They did not have a vision and they literally perished.
Take some time. Breathe. Go to a quiet place and just think. Picture your life 5 years from now. Where are you headed? If you continue on your current path, where will you be? Do you like that destination? You could be circling around and not heading anywhere.
We all need a vision. Miriam-Webster dictionary includes as a definition of vision: something that you imagine or something that you see in your mind. You have to see it. You have to imagine it. You have to picture it. This is the first step. You are blindly walking through life without knowing where you are headed.
I encourage you to think about your life and your vision. Only you can decide where you go.
I’ll leave you with an excerpt from one of my favorite Dr. Seuss books: “Oh, The Places You’ll Go.” BASED ON FAITH.