Due to all these reasons you need a very strong motivator. Something that will pull, push or drag you forward. There is only one thing powerful enough to do that and it's a VISION.

You'll still have to write all of your goals down. Then take that piece of paper and envision yourself after achieving all these goals. In order to succeed you have to become a person capable of succeeding, you have to start thinking like that person, act like that person.

Make yourself truly believe that you are looking into your future through crystal ball. Remember every little detail - expression on your friends faces, proud look in you parents eyes. Feel warm breeze on your face, smell salty air of ocean, imagine your new house on beach.

You need to create a vision so powerful, so desirable, so compelling that it draws all your energy and motivation to it. It has to become an obsession. You have to feel something that a person finding an oasis in middle of desert would feel. Absolute excitement and complete determination. Then any goal becomes possible.

SURELY THERE IS A BETTER WAY?

Back at that fogged-in airport, and clutch of more-or-less anxious passengers. One expensively-dressed mam puffed himself up, stomped to podium, and in a voice heard across crowded waiting area, “You don’t understand,” he shouted. “I AM IMPORTANT!”

Truth is, we’re all of us – and none of us – important in larger scheme of things. When big stuff happens, when there’s nothing we can do to effect a change . . . then best thing to do is do nothing. Hunker down. Wait gracefully. Breathe. Give thanks for whatever good things may be.

In The Power of Patience (Broadway, 2003), writer M. J. Ryan offers several simple steps we can take to put ourselves – and our life – in perspective. I especially like her suggestion to carry a small stone in my pocket. “When you start to feel irritation arise,” Ryan advises, “move pebble from one pocket to other, which will help interrupt anger cycle and give you a chance to regroup.”

Pebbles are good. And if, like me, you are often caught without a pocket to your name, may I offer an even easier idea: Extend your hand, palm down. Focus on it – yours is unique, unlike any other hand in world. Now slowly – S-T-R-E-T-C-H your fingers. . . Extend them . . . H-O-L-D it . . . and then RELAX.

Relax your fingers.

Relax your hand.

Relax your heart.

Relax into a slower space, where stakes are by definition lower.

AND NOW . . . WELCOME. WELCOME TO YOUR WORLD.