What if your life was a painting

In my most recent Toastmasters meeting I was asked to do a speech on a very interesting topic. “If you were an artist painting your life, what would its theme be?” In Toastmasters, you don’t get much time to think, you just have to get up and start talking. The whole point of it is to expand your creativity in a public speaking setting in front of a group of strangers that watch your every move and provide you with feedback in order to improve.  It takes you completely out of your comfort zone being put on the spot in front of everybody and this is why improvement happens quickly if you take the opportunity.
 
There I was, the "stage" was mine and I was standing in front of everybody trying to come up with a theme. How could I make them understand my life theme, when I don’t even know it myself? As I began speaking, something completely took over me. I’m not sure if it was because of the dilemma of what I’ll actually say or that all my life dreams suddenly came to me, but I started speaking and I couldn’t stop. It was a revelation to me, an epiphany of what I had always considered, but never quite put it in a verbal form. And as I kept going on, speaking with my most utter truth, metaphorically referring to a painting, I saw the clearest picture of my life there and then. It was one of the most inspiring moments I had experienced in a long time and once I saw that, I knew exactly what I have to do. The road finally cleared itself of some of the road blocks I was unable to push through before.
 
Expressing yourself from the source, your deepest soul’s desires is where this question really sits. If you think about it, the answer is simple because it’s already inside of you. We all have an idea of what our life is about, but to think of a theme to describe it takes getting to know yourself and the process of where you are going. Every morning, we wake up and most of the time we function on auto pilot. And this happens every day without us realising it most of the time. But as I was there standing in front of everyone doing my speech, I finally realized that everything happening in my life is because I have created it because when you see the bigger picture you start seeing why you do the things you are currently doing. You hear motivational speakers and mentors who have reached their success speak about this, but you really need to experience something to wake you up and help put everything into perspective. Somebody’s words are simply not enough because what you think, believe and say is the most important. It is what will push you further. When you suddenly shake up your daily routine and add something you don’t normally do or think about, the comfort goes away and you start living with more purpose.
 
So my advice to you is to take a blank piece of paper and start creating an image of your life. It doesn’t have to make sense to anybody else, but yourself. Listen to your intuition but don’t think too much. Just start drawing or simply putting some colors together.  The more you get into it, the more the answers will come to you. Do this when surrounded by nobody, with no external distractions (even music in the background, this is a time for you only). When you finally finish it, look at it and try to decipher what it really means for you and why it looks the way it does. I guarantee you that things will start making sense when you see the clear picture. It might not happen on the spot, but starting to question yourself about where in life you are vs where you are going is what is going to push you beyond your expectations and suddenly your road will slowly start clearing up.
You can do whatever you want with your life and most importantly choose who you want to be, but remember that you can really create a masterpiece if you really want to. Just as Michelangelo’s paintings inspired a whole world, your life and what you make of it could do the same. Live your masterpiece, you have the power to bring light on dark days and the possibility of adding colors to a blank canvas. Never stop feeling inspired and live your truth, by staying true to your theme.