I am pleased to support the debut novel of Gardenia Destang, Becoming Me, by hosting this guest blog post as part of her Virtual Book Tour celebration…

I would like to thank Diane for hosting me as a guest blogger, as part of the virtual book tour celebration for my debut novel, Becoming Me. In this blog post I share my thoughts on living life to the fullest.

In a conversation with Terri and one of her best friends Devon, Terri questioned him about a decision she made. Devon’s response was “not following one’s heart makes one a coward.”  This is a very strong statement and has a lot of truth to it.   There are so many of us who end up settling in life because we lack the courage and fortitude to follow our hearts and often resulting in unfulfilled lives.

Following one’s heart is not specific or particular to romantic pursuits but encompasses a much wider diaspora including our career paths, making important life decisions such as moving to another state, country. We grow up all having some indication of the direction we want our lives to go.  The course we take is influenced by our parents, friends, and circumstances.

I conducted an exercise among some of my close friends a few years ago where I asked them whether they were currently doing what they wanted to do.  There were about 12 of us in this discussion and only two indicated that they were currently working in the field that they had always wanted to, following their heart and doing what they wanted to do.

This got me thinking and I realized then that we were not alone, that there are many more cowards out there. I extended the exercise further and asked a few more persons outside of that particular circle. Once again the responses were similar, many were not doing what they really wanted to do, they were simply existing; not following their hearts or doing the things they really wanted to do.  There are several reasons for not following one’s heart, passion, or dreams and these include:

  • The fear of failure – what if I try and I fail? After I have invested so much what if I fail? What if I am not bright enough, young enough, wealthy enough, confident enough, brave enough? What if…?
  • Uncertainty – about where and how to start, especially if a significant amount of time has lapsed from the inception of the dream, or passion has also lapsed.
  • The timing not being right. Many believe that there must be the perfect timing to make a move. Everything must be in place before we can start moving forward and follow through on our dreams.
  • Being afraid or overly concerned about what other people in your life may say. Some of us are afraid that others may think and feel our dreams to be unrealistic, childish, selfish or plain out ridiculous.  There may be persons who instead of encouraging are very discouraging and unsupportive for whatever reasons.
  • Settling for something else other than what we really want, because we deemed there to be too many obstacles or impossibilities, fears in going after what we truly want, desire, dream.

Borrowing from the book “Becoming Me” Terri was motivated by Mark Twain who is alleged to have said “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

What are you waiting for? What’s preventing you from following your heart and pursuing your dreams?  If not now, when?

Gardenia is known for screen plays and her love for writing was given full expression when, on a whim, she decided to write her first book. While she wrote the book ‘Becoming Me’ for entertainment, Gardenia was cognizant of portraying issues that women can identify with, making it real. You can purchase this book, her debut novel, on Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/author/GardeniaDestang.

To find out more about Gardenia’s book tour – click the image below