I woke up this morning before my alarm went off and experienced that brief panic we have all had from time to time – “What day is it? What time is it? What am I supposed to be doing?”

I jumped out of bed and after debating with myself for a bit, I was pretty confident it was Thursday. How did it get to be Thursday already? Yesterday was the first day of school, officially marking the end of summer as far as my sons are concerned. Last night at dinner while discussing the first day of school, one of my sons said, “How did we get here so fast? I am just glad I had a great summer.”

After I recovered from my momentary panic of trying to figure out where I was and who I was this morning, his comment came rushing back to me. I began thinking about some of my clients and other people I encounter in my life who bring up the questions: “How did I get here? How did my life become this?”

The answer is simple – Choices.

The choices we made yesterday and the choices we made five and ten years ago - all those choices together brought us to where our life is today. This is why sometimes the present is a difficult place to be. Here lies the responsibility to make the choices that will shape our future. It comes down to choices and the fact that time keeps on passing; regardless of the choice we make in that moment, time keeps on passing.

I too often hear people say, “Well, I’ll just do this for now,” fully intending on making the change to where they really want to be later. The problem with this is either they never make that change and then wake up one day in a panic and saying, “How did I get here?” or they are living a life of constantly putting on band-aids but never actually treating the wound.

There is one very simple question we need to ask when making the choices that shape our future. In all of our circumstances and in all of our relationships we need to ask, “Does this feed my soul, or is it sucking the life out of me?” Listen to your heart, mind and soul (gut), that little voice you hear, or that little twist and turn of your stomach. When they are all in line, they know what they are talking about; together they know you better then you know yourself.

Do not sleep through your life or through the choices that shape your life. Don’t take the quick fix when making choices; start out today on the path to where you would like to end up. You do not want the day to come where you wake up in a panic and wonder what it is all about.

This is your life; are you who you want to be?

My grandmother passed away on Sunday July 30. She was 82. My grandmother’s death is the end of an era, the end of the Sunday Dinners. We have not gotten together regularly on Sundays for dinner since I was about 7, when we moved from New York to Illinois. But it is a significant part of my life -- it is a huge part of my memories of my childhood. My grandmother’s dying reminded me of what a great gift those regular family gatherings were in my and my brother’s lives. A gift my younger sisters do not know and my son’s probably cannot even wrap their minds around.

My childhood was filled with our extended family getting together each weekend for family dinners. Perhaps it was not every weekend, but that is how I remember it.

My grandparents came from Czechoslovakia and met the day after my Grandfather arrived in the U.S.; she was 12 and he was 15. They were together since then. He fought in the war, they raised a family and together they owned restaurants in New York. At the age of five I worked as a waitress at "Melody", the restaurant I remember best. I really thought I worked there, and I believed people really thought I was a real waitress. (I love how the child’s mind works.) My grandmother’s sister, Aunt Helen, and her husband, Uncle John, owned a jewelry store in Babylon, New York. I worked there too. These places hold some of my fondest memories of my childhood. My Uncle John passed away a few years ago. The wonderful reminiscing we've enjoyed with the deaths of these two important family members, drives home the reality that the family Sunday dinners are not a large part of American culture anymore.

Today, we eat dinner over the sink, at the kitchen counter or grab fast food on our way from one activity to the other. It is hard to keep up with the pace of our lives. I wonder what childhood memories my children are going to have. For me they are of peace and family and sitting around a table eating, laughing and talking.

My Grandmother taught me to work hard but she also taught me to play and to enjoy life. Our family is very close, we travel together, vacation together and my sisters and I golf together each week. But I do not sit down and eat dinner together at the kitchen table with my sons every night. My family does not get together just for Sunday dinner anymore. My Grandmother taught me to treasure family; to make time for family. So in her honor, I intend to make an effort to make that value more a part of my sons’ lives. We need to sit down to eat our dinner together as a family and turn off the noise so we can talk. The family Sunday dinners - we need to do that too - at least once a month. We need to make time for that.

To Mary Balis Salajka, my beloved Grandmother: you were a matriarch in every sense of the word. Together you and Grandpa lived the American dream. You were a strong woman and a great role model and you will be truly missed. I am grateful that you were such a huge part of my life. You are an amazing gift to us all. Your love is in each stitch of the blankets you made which my children sleep with each night and your spirit lives on in each of us. Thank you Grandma and here's to you and a life well lived!

One day, a friend of mine called me, angry that he missed his train. He was sitting on the next train but was now going to be an hour late starting his day. I told him “play the game.” “Game, what game, did you hear me, I missed the train,” he said. “Look for the reason you missed the train, it will reveal itself to you.” “Okay,” he laughed, mocking me as he hung up the phone.

About an hour and a half later this friend called me again. “I ran into a friend from college who I have not seen in years,” he said before I even had a chance to say hello. “Really,” I said, smiling that the reason he missed the train was revealed so quickly and in such an obvious way. “Yes,” he continued “what is more important is I realized that maybe I would have run into this friend whether I was playing your little game or not. Without playing the game, I probably would have had the same friendly chat with him but I would have gone right back to being angry about missing the train. Or, maybe, I would not have been paying attention because I was angry and I would not have noticed this friend at all and walked right past him. I would have missed a fun opportunity."

Click - the pieces snapped into place.

Looking for the reasons and learning the lessons when things don’t go our way is a fun and rewarding way to live. The simple act of looking to find how the pieces click together eliminates the frustration and anger we sometimes feel when unexpected events disrupt our lives. It helps us see that our lives bring us where we need to be whether we agree with where we are or with where we are going at that particular time.

Sometimes the reasons or the lessons are not so obvious, and sometimes they are not revealed to us for a long time. But they are never revealed if we are not open or looking to find them.

Do not collect all your pieces and assemble them at the end of your life. Play the game and put the pieces of your life together as you live it.

The house we lived in when I was growing up is on a quiet street that rarely had other cars coming down it. Hundreds of times I pulled out of that driveway and never encountered another car. It was so uncommon for another car to be coming that I usually never stopped moving when pulling out. I always paused and looked both ways but the car continued to roll, I rarely ever needed to come to a complete stop.

So, the other day while pulling out of the driveway after a visit, I did the normal routine: get settled, put on my seatbelt, adjust the radio and roll to the threshold between the protective haven of my childhood home and the spot at which I officially re-enter the real world. My car was still rolling as I noticed a car coming down the street. The oncoming car was still about three or four car lengths down the street. I was not out of the driveway yet and seeing the other car surprised me. Even though I was barely moving, I hit the breaks harder then I needed to and waited for the woman to pass. As she drove past the front of my car, she slowed down, made a face and, looking me square in the eyes, shook her head at me. It made me laugh at first because I was nowhere near invading her space or making any kind of contact with her. I was completely stopped and waiting long before she even crossed in front of me. She did not even need to slow her pace. Then a feeling come over me like I did something wrong to her personally. For a brief moment I felt both embarrassment and even a twinge of shame. I quickly shook those feelings because I did not do anything wrong and I was not going to let whatever her issue was affect me.

That episode made me realize that whether I felt I was right or wrong, we are becoming intolerant of other people's mistakes. I did not think I made a mistake, but this woman apparently felt that I did and she decided to clearly point that out to me.

It's a shame that we have gotten to a place where we are not accepting of other's mistakes, but we expect everyone to be tolerant of ours.Mistakes are a part of life; a part of growing and learning and evolving. If we stop making mistakes, we stop living.

I love the flaws and imperfections that tell the story of my life. I wear them everyday and I cannot get rid of them. I do not want to be rid of them; I embrace them and smile because of the stories they tell…

The scar through my eyebrow is from losing my focus and depth perception when I was only in kindergarten causing me to walk into a piece of equipment on the school playground. I remember vividly feeling my mother holding my hand ― my 8 1/2 month pregnant mother held my hand and cried deeply for me. Although the emergency room doctors thought she might, she did not give birth that day, but I got my first pair of glasses.

The scar on my chin is from splitting it open three separate times in one summer on the same rock, over the same handlebars, of the same bike ― what is the definition of insanity again? Oh, yes, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results… interesting. My youngest son has his own story to tell about the scar on his chin ― ask around, there is a whole club of us. When my son was getting his chin “glued” closed, five of the seven adults in the room had a scar on their chin.

The tiny patch of stretch marks on the lower right side of my abdomen is where all three of my sons rested their heads while they grew inside me; it will be a reminder long after my sons are grown and gone and have families of their own, that there were once three babies whose lives I was blessed to have begin inside me.

The scar on my toe, well that one I do not remember, but I am sure it remembers its story and it is a part of me just as much as the others.

The lines that grow and deepen around my eyes each carry the stories of the deep joys and deep sorrows of my life. These lines even carry stories that I have forgotten. There are the times when I have laughed so hard that I could not breath and my stomach muscles hurt so much that even the next day I could feel a gentle soreness that would bring a smile. They also carry the stories of the times I have cried from such deep sadness that I thought I would never recover from the loss I was grieving at the time. These lines are the evidence of the times, the places, the people and the events, especially the ones I have forgotten, that have touched my soul. I have earned them, I treasure them and I would never dream of erasing them.

I have three large scars on three different parts of my body that together tell the same story of how I am alive today. I have worn them pretty much my entire life; to me, they are beautiful.

My knee hurts and cramps up sometimes, especially when it rains, from the damage of years of playing sports. With this body, scars, flaws and all; I played, enjoyed, and still do ― not just sports ― but life.

I have other scars and flaws, both inside and out, and all together, they are me... We tell our story with the way we live our life. Live well and tell a great story.Do not seek perfection, it is in the flaws where true beauty is found.

Three boys live here. I am looking around my house and it is in desperate need of some major cleaning. The lives of three young boys and mine come crashing into each other here. Soccer shoes, golf clubs, backpacks, notes from school, band aids and reminders of events coming up. Our walls are covered with pictures reminding us of the time that has passed by so quickly. I look at the mess and I think I should be getting the cold weather clothes packed away and the warm weather clothes out. Another job to do, and inevitably creating yet another mess to clean. It is hard keeping up when I consider the trade off ― the other things, the fun things, the fulfilling things going on in my life.

Three boys live here ― three boys who seem to live in the kitchen. The pantry door is always left open and the kitchen is a few degrees colder then the rest of the house because of the added cooling system of the refrigerator door always being open.

I think about doing some major, deep cleaning sometimes, but then I think, what is more important in life: completing endless housekeeping tasks or making memories? Do I want my boys to grow up and remember living in a spotless house and eating gourmet dinners, or do I want them remembering how we played together, watched movies together and how I knew as much about “Crash Bandicoot” and “Jak and Daxter” as they did? We go to the driving range and bowling alley, we play baseball, soccer, basketball and golf in the yard. We play board games and computer games together and read stories at night.

As a mother, that is the legacy I want to leave; the constant cleaning and endless scrubbing will wait, our life will not.

Three boys live here, but they won't live here forever. So for now, straightened up is good enough; I choose to create memories.

Recently my brother, our four sisters and I went on a team-building weekend. My brother had done this about a year before with his company and experienced some large shifts in his life as a result. We are an extremely close family and did not go on the weekend to repair relationships, but to make them deeper and stronger while exploring our own personal challenges. Forty feet in the air on high rope courses, attached to lobster claws and carabineers, belays and harnesses we encouraged, guided and protected each other. But most important, we learned both from each other and about each other.

In one of our challenges the scenario was: as a rescue team we needed to save two pilots who crashed their plane while transporting human organs to transplant recipients. We had two hours to complete a variety of challenges on high rope courses and ground courses to get to the accident site, make the rescue and get everyone and the organs back to safety. We quickly gathered the equipment waiting for us on the front porch of the house and set off to locate the accident site. Checking our own equipment we took everything set out for us but two harnesses.

We made our way through the challenges and reached the airplane, pulled the pilots out and put them on the boards we brought to use as stretchers. After determining a hierarchy of needs, we transferred the six organs we could fit into our small cooler from the larger one on the plane. Unfortunately, we had to leave two organs behind. We approached a large wall that we needed to get up and over and then ride a zip line down to the rescue team waiting to take the pilots to safety.The pilots, end in sight ― we did not start out on our challenge with the end in sight ― we left the extra harnesses behind on the porch because we had ours.

End in sight ― nevertheless, we made it, we got two members of our team over the wall and down the zip line and had them send their harnesses back to us for the pilots. We made it, but we wasted a lot of valuable time and we added frustration and stress and a few arguments to our challenge.

Whether it is the way we live our life or the smallest task we are working on, remembering this lesson keeps us on a more healthy, direct and successful path.End in sight ― it is a simple concept, but so easily disregarded and too often ignored.