Suppose you are in your 50s, as I am, and you’re looking back to your life of 20 years ago. How much of your life today looks the way you expected it to be? Can you imagine what might be different if you had envisioned something different then?

Did you, in fact, envision a dream, or did you simply pursue what you determined others expected of you? How much of your life today is authentically yours? What will it look like in 5, 10 or 15 years from now?

Many people bypass the powerful engagement of forming that hopeful picture of the future. Do you truly want to entrust the development of your life to the whims of chance?

What would your home look like if it had been erected without an architectural plan?

Who is designing your life?

Nothing of lasting quality has ever materialized without someone envisioning the possibility of its greatness, often in structure and content, if not in minute detail. Ted Turner envisioned people around the globe glued to 30 minute TV news segments, and now millions of people all over the world watch CNN every second. Don Hewlit, among others, imagined the TV news magazine show 60 MINUTES, and then came 48 HOURS, DATELINE, etc…. Someone saw electronic mailings and cell phones that transmit images as a way of life. In 2008 regular folks will voyage in space, as visions create reality.

When I was 30, I purchased a rundown home on the Southside of Birmingham, and saw my own firm and other lawyers filling it up years later. I also envisioned myself at 50 as one ofAlabama’s top Criminal Defense Lawyers, nationally known for freeing innocent people from the throws of Death Row. During that time, I was appointed to defend a poor 15-year-old accused of intentionally killing a young girl, but I knew it was accidental. I envisioned a jury finding him innocent of all charges but a misdemeanor, and I continuously imagined a juror’s tears falling on my fingertips, as they rested on the jury rail. I saw and heard in my mind my exact closing argument delivered in an exact tone. I will never forget the experience of actually feeling the juror’s hot tears, and he became the foreperson. All this, and much more, I envisioned then visualized, and the events happened.

While I did envision a wonderful father-daughter relationship, which is amazing and exceeds all my hopes, for some unknown reason, I had no vision of other aspects of my personal life. And so it became the house without structure, design or quality. Finally, it is being redesigned. It is never too late to create your life. Each moment brings us choices.

Nothing of quality that lasts occurs with out vision and envisioning. We are all architects of our own life, moment-by-moment. What we dare to envision today materializes tomorrow, or something else does. So again I ask: Who is the architect of your life? What will your house look like in the years to come?

Richard S. Jaffe, ACC, CPCC, JD.
http://www.acoachforchampions.com/