Time for a Flash Fire:

    When we watch the news or have it shared with us, we feel a shiver of fear or sorrow when we hear about a forest fire. We think of the majestic forest ravaged by the flames, the lose that those in its path suffer, but what we don’t see it what a grand and amazing thing that blaze is actually doing. Forest becomes overgrown at time and large, majestic trees die and leave their bones in the way choking out other life that is struggling to thrive. The simple fact is that a forest fire, though devastating, is also a source of massive renewal for the forest. It clears away all the dead trees and choking underbrush so that a new generation of trees and life can grow and thrive, renewing the forest and creating beauty and even more majestic scenes than there used to be.

    Humans are no different from the forest, as our lives keep going we have things in our lives that are there for no other reason than they used to be there. They serve no real purpose in our current lives and are there taking up our resources with our giving back any value for us. We, like the forest, need to start a fire and scorch away those things in our lives that no longer serve us, be they relationships that are one sided or have run their course or projects that are nothing but a drain anymore. These things in our lives served a purpose at one time or another and brought value into our lives at that point. Yet, as we grow and expand life the forest, those things can die and become burdens to us, sapping the resources we need for new life without enriching our lives.

    So we have to start a fire in our lives, we need to find those things that are a drain and no longer of value in our lives and make a change. There can be several ways to revitalize the forest of our lives. Once we have found one of those giant dead trees that is sapping us, we can do a couple things. We can clear it away and get rid of it from our lives, let the fire of our dreams and our journey consume it and free that space and energy for new growth, or we can revitalize it. Find some way to let the fires of change consume it and turn it into something that bring energy and passion back into your life. This could be as simple as falling in love with it again or it can be restructuring that thing to make it more vibrant and effective. For example, I play war games and build and paint the models for them. A year ago, I would have told you that those items were just taking up space on my shelf, but recently, I let the fires of passion transform that aspect of my life into something new and vibrant. I am once again getting great returns on what was an old, dead tree in my life. We don’t have to remove the dead growth in our lives, but it does have to change and start to serve us again or it is just choking off the new live.

    So it is time to start a personal forest fire and feed the withering and dead projects and ideas in our lives to it. It is time to free up that space in our lives to indulge in those things that bring values and passion into our lives.