What Do You Reach For?

If you have reached this article in your search and are not interested in getting out of your head and into your life then this is not for you. What are you reaching for? Whatever it is, you will not find it here. This article is written for the purpose of assisting those who are seeking to expand their reach out into life.

To reach is to stretch out, to extend in space, time, effect and influence. It is impossible to arrive at a destination, or to achieve a dream or a goal without reaching for it.   From Old English - roecan - to stretch oneself.

What do you reach for?

One of the first abilities you acquire not long after your birth was the ability to reach. What is the first thing you reach for? Your mother, your father, those who cared for you and about you. You reached for love and security. A few months later you added to your reach as you reached for food and toys. Things that brought you nourishment and pleasure. Your universe was small and intimate shared only with those who were invested in your well-being, grandparents, siblings, close family friends. As your ability to reach expanded so too did your world. Just as your body continued to grow so too did your reach. You were able to reach out and touch another with a laugh, a smile or a cry of distress. Your reach began to encompass more and more people, places and things.

What do you reach for now and why is it so important that you continue to expand your reach?

In her autobiography, A Lotus Grows In The Mud, Goldie Hawn recounts how her father asked her the question so many parents ask their children, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Goldie's reply, "Happy." Happiness is a state of being and in Goldie's reaching for that state she continued to expand her reach as she gave unto others through her willingness to make herself known. Throughout her TV career she touched lives all across North America and beyond giving hundreds of thousands of people something to smile at, something to enjoy and something to out and out laugh at. Her movie career was no different as she continued to give of herself, continued to reach past where she had gone before. Today Goldie's reach has extended around the globe and it is difficult, if not impossible to think of her without feeling happy, without seeing her infectious smile in your mind's eye. Goldie reached her goal of happiness and she still reaches out to others.

Another obvious example of someone who has a great reach is Oprah. Oprah reached for one goal, one dream after another and expanded her world as she expanded the world of those about her. She has not stopped reaching, she is willing to make herself known, to be seen and give onto others something to reach for.

Goldie and Oprah are but two examples of people who gradually and consistently continued to reach and in their so doing both of them have greatly expanded their sphere of influence. Neither greedily reached for the "whole thing" but rather they reached for the next correct step on their journey. They have been of service to others in their journey as they did not reach only to take, but to give.

The fall taken from the pedestal upon which a large portion of society placed Tiger Woods occurred because, where Goldie and Oprah aspired to be the best their best 'self', Tiger aspired to be the best golfer.  Reach for the best you, you can be and then do and have from there.  In our comparing ourselves to others and placing them above or beneath us we have nothing of value with which to measure our own worth.  If each and every day you become a better, and better you the only comparison that is valid is to look back and see how far you have traveled in your own adventure.  Then from your present time you extend your reach into the future. 

You do not just reach with your hands, your reach with your communication, with your body language,  your attitudes, your emotions, and your personality.  You reach with your heart, your mind and your spirit. What do you reach for?  Do you reach for loved ones, for companionship, for friendship, for intimacy, for your fellow man, and for dreams and goals? Do you reach to contribute to or do you reach to take? Or have you stopped reaching and withdrawn from life? What makes you reach? What causes you to withdraw?

We are in this world at a time when it has never been easier to reach out to others. Our technology allows for us to make ourselves known, to touch the lives of others whom we will never meet in person, to cross the globe at the touch of a finger and to influence those others and our world in a glorious and purpose filled way. We can offer words of encouragement or words of solace to people who become our friends even though they will never sit at our tables. Our being able to reach in this way was only a dream until somebody, somewhere started to reach for it and encouraged others to reach as well.

What if we expanded our reach even further and reached past the technology and connected in the truth of who we are.  What then could we accomplish - together?

What do you reach for?