Everyone wants to be successful in life. Whether it is today, tomorrow, a month from now, or years from now. Success is an ever-changing goal and varies for everyone. When I see success in my future, I see Gods will. Yes we all have a plan. We are gonna get married, have kids by our late 20s and graduate from college before this whole journey begins. We all want to have the best of the best of everything in our lives. But none of us have struggles and hardships anywhere in our equations...but yet, they still touch our everyday life. You ran out of gas on the high way? Well dang, you better call a tow truck. Your credit card got denied while buying coffee? You better pray like hell the person behind you has a heart and covers your bill. Those are little things that could happen. Now there are larger hardships in life. For instance, say your child was on her way home from the Friday night football game and got in a car accident. Now this story could go multiple ways; she could be hospitalized, perfectly fine, or dead. Her car could be totaled, or it could just be a scratch, or you just have to replace the passenger door. There is a whole other world of possibilities, yet we don't include those in our plans for the future. And the funny thing about life is, we think we have control of what happens next, but we don't.

Take a deep breath. Hold it for five seconds, and slowly release. Did you tell your mouth or nose to breathe in that air? Did you tell your lungs to expand? Did you tell your windpipe to close to hold the air in? Did you tell your lungs to contract, pushing the air out? And don't even get me started on how with that breath you put oxygen into your blood stream to carry around your whole body to keep it functioning. Or how about all the neurons transmitting messages to your brain to stop breathing air in? You did not tell your body to do any of that, it just knew to do so. Those are some of the things we take for granted. We take for granted how our eight systems in our body are hardwired to know what to do. So why should we take the life we live for granted? We take something so simple and breathing for granted, yet we take those 23,000 breaths every single day and don't think twice about it.

"You don't know what you have until it is gone". One of the well represented quotes for break ups. But have you ever thought about applying it to life? Think about how some people hate their job. But they still go daily because they are getting paid. And money gets you what? It pays for the roof over your head, the groceries in the fridge, the clothes on your back, and that daily morning ritual of getting a Starbucks frap. In my future I want to appreciate everything I am able to do, because someone blessed me with a job. I want to cherish my children while I can before they grow older and start families of their own. I want to give them everything they deserve in a childhood so they can reciprocate for their kids. I want all the success for them in the world, yet I want them to struggle. I want to see them go through ups and downs in life so they can learn. Having everything handed to you on a silver platter in life is easy, but when do you become independent? During your hardships. You don't have Mom right there to rescue you. You, my friend, have to figure it out all on your own. People either make it or break it in those situations, and I hope and pray that we make it.

In my future, I want to feel full. We all want to feel accomplished. When we are 80 and sitting on the old wooden rocking chair bird-watching, I would like to say "I have lived my life to the fullest possible" and not second guess that. I don't want to think "I wish I would have done this or that," I want to be content and feel rewarded for living how God planned for me. We all want to live our life, so start today and figure out how you want your future to go. And pray like hell that it all doesn't go to shit.