Taking Stock
cruz car

Traveling the highway of life in style, one adventurer turned her art car into happiness.

by Debbie Stock

When you want to analyze your life or a specific situation, you are taking stock. Throughout my adult life I’ve actually had people make jokes about this because my last name is “Stock”. We’d go through some sort of game-playing about taking stock.

Taking stock is actually a valuable process to go through every so often. We all know that we’re probably NOT going to die tomorrow, but there certainly are no guarantees as to how long we will live and when it will be our time to go. Taking stock is an exercise that lets us step back and see ourselves as a third party. In psychological terms this is often considered not a healthy thing to do–to remove ones self from being who we are. However, if we’re cognizant that it’s just a game we are playing to examine if what we’re doing is the right path for us, then we know it’s a short-term, temporary exercise in self-analysis that’s perfectly OK.

So what happens when you take stock? Do you have a feeling of dread that you’ve done this same thing over and over and over–like a new year’s resolution that never actually is realized? If so, you need to come up with a plan to change the way you make your life work out so you’ll be happy, fulfilled, help others and say it was all worthwhile. There are some great books, websites and tips to help you follow your dream, have a dream, or find meaning. This isn’t one of those places, unfortunately. But if Debbie Stock finds some great ideas for you to help you take stock, she’ll post them and pass them along.