What If?

What if you only lived another ten years?

Would you live life drastically different, or keep going along the same path?  

And do you think ten years of intense, thought-provoking memories can equal fifty years of mindless meandering?

Something to ponder on a Monday evening...

And here is a picture of the end of the sunset I saw this evening on the way home from the specialist in Murfreesboro.  I stopped on the side of the road to enjoy the sunset, and it was magnificent!!

Lose Control

For all of my life, I was only happy when I was in control.  I was a bit high-strung as a child, and I liked to know what was going on all of the time.  My parents joked that when I was a baby, they had to "crank my swing" and bring me in whatever room they were working in.  I always needed to have contact with people, and needed to feel like I had control of the situation.

That's probably where I developed an unhealthy fascination with numbers.  I will admit that as a child, I would add up numbers in license plates and on random items, and felt comfort when the numbers made sense.  I told this to my trainer yesterday while I was running, and he laughed.  He said it was pretty strange, and he joked that I clung to numbers because "they wouldn't fail me."  It was funny, but also true.  Math always had an answer, and there was no gray area; I could always maintain control.

As I grew up, there were many areas of my life that I kept under wraps.  I always wanted to do the best in school, I could never make a grade that was less than perfect, and I had a very solid and organized plan of what I wanted to do with my life.

Once I got out of school, I realized I was miserable.  I was grasping at everything I could- trying to control SOMETHING in my life.  I didn't know what I wanted to be when I "grew up," there were expectations to become something fancy, and I didn't feel like I ever fit in.  I became fixated on my body, and an eating disorder began.

I figured if I could control everything I put in my mouth, I would have control over my life.  And the more I exercised, that showed me that I had the "perfect" willpower and determination.  I knew I was miserable, but it was hard to let go of that illusion of control.

Flash forward to today...  I have already admitted that part of the problem in the past few years is that I felt suffocated, and that every decision I wanted to make to move forward only put me further behind.  It was killing my perfectionist personality.  Throw in a few curveballs life tossed my way, and I was a pretty hot mess.  I knew I was hard to deal with, and that is probably why my brain took short "breaks" on a daily basis.

What I have realized in the past few months: I have very little control over anything.  I can't control people; all I can do is give my input and expectations and hope for the best.  I can't control  the world around me- people will always be there to make me happy and also disappoint.  As much as I try to make good choices about my health, I have learned to go with the flow and accept where my medical history will lead me.

I can control how I approach each day, and I have every ability to control the way I treat those around me.  I have complete control over exposing my life to more education, culture and variety.  I can choose to be around content, supportive and inspiring people.  And I will succeed in growing as a person.  I don't have incredible expectations for transformation.  I know I am a "work in progress."

"If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough." ~Mario Andretti

I love that quote. :-)

And I begin drum lessons next Wednesday!

On Purpose...

The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live. ~Ayn Rand

I have thought a lot today about purpose.  Why do we do what we do? And do our actions and speech show purpose?

I teach middle school. I love my job, but I can tell you that there is a lot of time where people do NOT speak with purpose... In fact, I think there are some young people that speak just to hear something.  It isn't just their words--their actions show they have lost purpose in their life.  It is funny that I am more aware about such things once starting this project.

I can tell you that my life is filled with purpose.  It wasn't always that way, though.  In fact, until about five months ago, I felt like my life had little purpose.  I knew I had to exist for my kids, and I needed a job in order to support them.  But I didn't feel a fire inside me... I wasn't excited about life, and I didn't make conscious decisions about my future.  I was living just to get by, and I felt like I was barely holding on.  Life isn't meant for existence--I was meant to thrive!  I knew if I stayed in the same old rut, I would end up miserable (and I was close!).

I made a conscious decision to give my life purpose.  And not just assign purpose, but to find it in all of my actions.  Motive is an interesting thing.  People need something out of every interaction in life.  Once you find the motive, it's easy to see what you are missing in life.  Not only was I orienting myself toward purpose; I was also examining the motives of my actions.

I will be brutally honest for a moment.  I know I was miserable.  I hated my life.  I felt suffocated by everything, and my brain's response was to zone out.  That was no way to even exist.  I hated life, and tried to blame people for causing me to be where I was.  In the end, I realized that I ultimately had a choice over whether I would remain miserable.  I had a choice over everything in my life, and I was tired of sitting by and being miserable that life didn't turn out the way I hoped.

Moving back toward family was probably the best decision I have ever made in my life.  I have gotten so much support, that I have been able to approach all my decisions as whether or not things fill my life with meaning.  I am no longer facing the battle of survival--I am able to make conscious decisions about where I want to go in life, what I want to do in my future, and with whom I want to spend my time.  It has been liberating and very settling at the same time.

This project has caused me to magnify my daily actions, and look for the purpose.  I am examining my world through a completely different lens.  Through the sweat, tears, laughter and pain, I am seeing what a strong, confident, and intelligent woman I have become.  The purpose of these past few months has been a transformation, but it has also been to restore what was rightfully mine.  I got my "self" back. :-)