Showing posts with label self-awareness. Show all posts
Time for action
This will be vague and rambling, but you’re used to that sort of thing from me, aren’t you?
So it seems like for the past year or so I’ve been figuring out what I want with my life, what has been bringing me down and where I need to improve. I remembered what joy felt like, gained a couple of new hobbies, and stood up for myself in new ways. Now I guess I’m done with that part, the discovery, and it’s time for action.
Action? Well that hardly seems fair. I thought figuring things out was action. That I’d be able to rest once I figured things out, that discovery would bring about the change I need, but apparently I have to do that part too.
But I’m so tired! Can’t you just do the first part for me, Universe? Give me a little kick-start?
Well, of course not. No matter how often I forget, no matter how much I wish someone else would take care of me, that’s not how it works. No one will carry me. No windfall will make my journey easier.
And I catch myself wishing I had chosen a profession instead of drifting all these years, but then I have to remember I would be questioning any of my established choices just now, because it is that time.
I laugh, thinking of how I thought I would be in my 40s. How mature. So stable. Secure in my self-knowledge. Of course, the more you know the more you realize you don’t know. I knew this a long time ago, but for some reason I didn’t think about it applying to my life’s journey, as well. Only to individual experiences.
I’m not saying the floundering is over, but I do feel a bit better. More creative and open. Ready to connect, and less judging of my failures.
Now I just have to figure out how to proceed and look for an opening.
Saturday morning rambling
So what about dreams? On some list somewhere I read that people don't like to read about other people's dreams, but I like reading about them. Am I unusual, or was that list writer just a cranky old goat?
Do you know what I hate about writing? It's not how long the business process takes, not anymore. It's how long I take. It's always longer than I think it will be, and then I feel like a failure, even though I'm the one who set the bar on impossibly high pegs. I never adjust my timeline, either. Once the date passes, I just have a constant feeling of lateness. What a self-defeating attitude! To wake up every morning feeling like a failure already because I didn't meet some arbitrary goal and don't have the brains to realistically adjust it.
Well at least I finally realized what I'm doing. I'm always telling everybody else to take it easy on themselves. Well now I'm going to take my own advice, whether I'm feeling like the greatest writer in the world or a complete hack, I can only do what I can do, sometimes that less and sometimes more, but it's always adequate.
I think it's probably less about my goals and more about giving away my power. Putting other people's intentions for me ahead of my own. Trying to live according to other people's standards, even when I'm not entirely sure what those are. I've been doing it my whole life but only recently realized the full impact of it. I think if I can get out of that habit my whole life will open up before me. It's not even a habit at this point so much as a personality trait, I've been doing it so long. I don't have my own standards, I've been living by other people's for so long.
Is this what middle age is about? Finding out about yourself? Throwing off the mantle your parents and husband and friends and in-laws set on your shoulders in the first half of your life? If so, no wonder it causes crises, because I'm just about ready to tear off that mantle, stand naked if necessary before I wear someone else's mantle ever again.
It would be good if I could find a way to do that without bothering anyone.
