We’re facing a death in the family right now and it’s a complicated situation—well as complicated as humans and emotions make things.  There are entire lives lived that we knew nothing about because of how things were portrayed in the family—and that was their prerogative to present that front.  We never know what goes on behind closed doors.  But when those doors can’t stay closed anymore, the truth starts to come out.  There is no hiding the secrets we so desperately wanted to keep from other people’s view.  Like we can bury it but the truth always comes out.  It’s amazing how simply sharing the truth puts everything into perspective.  We see the person for who they were, we see all sides and suddenly it makes sense.  Humans are truly complex creatures and we’ve all lost our way at times, thinking we know the answers or what’s best, prioritizing different things from other people and it makes it painful to feel the separation in life and it always makes you wish that we could go back.  Hindsight is 20/20 after all.  Death seems to bring out total panic or total peace in people.  There’s no control in death, not of where we go, not of knowing what really happens, not of what people think of us after and there is no stopping it.  There is no defending any type of legacy once that voice is silenced. 

At the same time, witnessing death also makes you think of life and what it means. Life is funny (albeit confusing and perhaps annoying in its ambiguity) with all of the inherent polarizing things that come with it.  Consistently inconsistent.  Beautifully imperfect.  So much good filled with bad and so much bad that’s truly good.  It’s hard to know what’s right, what the point is, where the truth is.  There are no easy answers and frankly it’s hard to not question whether or not it’s a game for something else at times, like some version of the marbles we see the aliens playing at the end of Men In Black. I find it hard to accept that we simply live and die but, like most people, I’m tired of asking what the point is.  I’m tired of trying to figure it out, feeling the stress like if I don’t find “the answer” I’ve somehow failed.  There isn’t a single answer other than for whatever reason we are meant to experience the entire spectrum of what life has to offer, the good and the bad.  We are supposed to find the parallel of that good and bad in ourselves and understand that is simply part of being human.    

I don’t understand the battles some people face or why they chose them but I know we all have our own brand of demons to face.  That is one certainty in life–We are constantly faced with what we don’t want to see and we see the same issues repeatedly until we are willing to face it head on.  Even death can’t stop that.  I see what the family is going through now and I truly wish I could fix it but there are things that no amount of words, wishing, wanting, or willing will correct.  For as much as we know the truth always comes out, we also know that we will have to deal with the consequences.  Those are things we can’t sweep under the rug.  I’ve learned first hand that we are not responsible for making people pay for what they did/holding them accountable for their actions or perceived slights/transgressions.  I’ve wanted to fight my fair share of things but I see how that was merely wasted energy.  I feel like the whole point of life is to find satisfaction.  To arrive at the end content with what happened.  I can’t say “live with no regrets” because, again, we’re human but I can say that living a life we are at peace with is the goal.  The last thing I want is to face my demons when I’m trying to find rest.  So it’s best to make that peace while we’re still alive and able.        

“Personality can open doors but only character can keep them open,” Lily Collins.  I know someone from childhood who has always walked through life like nothing bothers her.  I mean, I’ve been with her through some truly painful and challenging moments and I know things do get to her but the world would never know it.  When we were kids my mom used to say, “That girl could step in a pile of shit and come out smelling like roses.”  It may sound crass or hurtful, but it was meant as a compliment to the sort of resilience and/or skill to slide through any situation and not let it stick.  That doesn’t mean this person doesn’t have her share of scars, but she certainly learned how to navigate situations with a certain degree of ease.  Now, I share this because I was always incredibly jealous of her because she always seemed to get her way.  She could somehow aim at the entirely wrong pocket and still end up where she needed to be, like she could do no wrong.  I thought of this person when I read that quote because I realized I’d been living my life in comparison to her (perhaps in competition with her) for ages.  She’d flit through life, finding great opportunities only to move on to the next one and then the next one after that and she amassed huge success doing that.  I stayed working for the same company that was supposed to be a temporary job for over 20 years hoping it would move me up through the ranks.  Was this a matter of personality or character?  Her personality carried her through multiple rooms while mine carried me up the ladder and who is to say one is better than the other? 

After reading that quote, I understood had been looking at our lives wrong.  Through that comparison lens, I had considered each trait to be better than the other at one point and I was operating from the perception that one was better than the other.  I’d honed skills on the character side, wanting to prove to people I was worthy and she’d honed skills on the personality side creating a network in a variety of ways.  She literally has always had the personality that opens doors and she is amazing at it—and she is truly an amazing, caring, and talented person.  I wanted to create that network but I also wanted to control the narrative around my life and, I will admit, my competitive nature led me to want to be the best (again that came from wanting to prove my worth).  With that being said, the truth is we need to learn to develop both, personality and character.  We need to find ways to connect with people and build a network but we also need to be consistent enough to develop ourselves and others along the way.  It was never a competition to begin with.  It doesn’t necessarily matter how big our network is and it really doesn’t matter how far up the ladder we go.  If we create more bridges than walls, the truth is we don’t need any doors and we can walk as far as we want and that distance is only limited by ourselves.         

The truth is personality and character are two sides of the same coin and that coin is constantly flipping in the air.  Humans are this odd mix of malleability and consistency so the key comes down to recognizing our own signals for what we need to do and when we need to move.  We want to be steady enough to make progress to serve our purpose but we want to be adaptable enough to keep up with the times.  So the reality is it truly comes down to reading the room and reading ourselves.  Looking back at the person I’m talking about, I know part of that secret sauce she lives by is that she just doesn’t get caught up in anything and that in itself keeps her moving forward.  That type of resilience can be developed through practice but I will admit there are some people simply born with that skill.  That is a degree of self-awareness that keeps those individuals seemingly aware of everything but focused on the target.  The thing is we don’t need to create more competition in this world, we need to learn to better navigate through it.  We need to learn to use both sides of that coin and operate with intention as far as if we are creating a network.  That network will start with personality but it will be maintained with our character.  One last thing for consideration is that both will always be revealed.  We can’t hide who we are forever—just embrace those facets of our personality and use them to define our character.            

“What you do makes a difference and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make,” Jane Goodall. We’ve spent enough time talking about how others make us feel and what they think of us.  Our job isn’t to make people see us a certain way, it’s to leave a mark on the world for something greater than we are just like we spoke about last week with the purpose of life being to add value.  It’s to help people do the same.  We’ve seen plenty of examples of people leaving a less than desirable mark on the world and Lord knows there are plenty of people out there whose sole purpose is to get their name out there.  They just want the lights for the sake of having the lights on them.  The thing with image is it’s fleeting.  People are fickle and whether it’s ourselves who change our image or it’s the people who start to feel differently, our image is based on opinion.  The funny thing about opinion is I’d like to say that no one remembers us based on opinion but that’s not entirely true.  They remember us based on the story that gets told and that story is always biased because it’s from one side and we don’t often get to hear the other side so it’s pretty polarizing.  It may seem like I’m talking about trying to control the narrative, but as we spoke about last week, we don’t get to decide that story—that’s true.  So all we can do is make sure we’re doing our best to do something positive.

The world often discounts the little things that make this a better place.  They ignore the magic that exists right at our fingertips and all around.  We’ve gone way too far to the other extreme in this world when it comes to connection—perhaps that’s the wrong way to look at it.  We’ve gone too far to the other extreme of the purpose of connection.  We absolutely need connection and community, we just don’t need to be inundated by every single person every second of the day.  That is way too much for the brain to process.  Compile that with the pressures to survive, thrive, and succeed, and we’ve created a powder keg of tension and suppressed emotion.  And THAT is also the power of connection—to help disperse some of that energy.  So with all that being said, we need to remember that making a difference isn’t all grand gestures and shows—it can literally be something as small as a smile.  It can be making a phone call.  Speaking as someone who has been emotionally saved by a phone call, I will attest to that 100%.  We make our choices in this world and that ripples out to other people.  The truth is all we can do is our best and hope that it matters but if we operate from a place of good intention, that’s enough.  The world knows what’s in our hearts and that’s just vibration.  So elevate and put out our best. 

Today I am grateful for perspective.  Sometimes we really have to get out of our own heads and listen to what someone else has to say on it.  We get too close to the situation and we don’t think right.  Just because we are close to it doesn’t mean we know everything about it.  I brought in a third party for an opinion on a matter and explained the situation as objectively as I could and this person told me the truth.  They told me where I needed to shore up and be stronger and not take things personally and they also let me know where the other side could have improved.  I like to be right but not at the sake of relationships so I don’t mind being told when I need to get in check.  As much as I hate to admit it, I also don’t mind being validated every now and then.  There’s enough craziness in this world that sometimes it’s nice to hear that we’re right or that we weren’t imagining things—it’s not wrong to want some back up every now and then.  Regardless, it helps to get that outside view every now and then to confirm the difference.   

Today I am grateful for a clean slate.  After getting burned by some tumultuous relationships, I was incredibly hesitant to form friendships again.  Adult friendships are some of the most difficult to form and I’d put in a lot of effort that fizzled out in the end—actually it bit me in the ass repeatedly.  Regardless, as I mentioned a few days ago, I found out that some people in this group are rehashing the incident (kind of like I’m doing here, sorry) to people who weren’t involved, in essence trying to make us look bad to people we didn’t/don’t know yet.  The person who informed me of this told me she understood everything going on and she only replied with, “I can’t imagine how hurt you must feel.”  The weight of the constant pressure to hold my own and to be ready for a fight melted away.  I’m not perfect and I certainly was never trying to give that impression to anyone, but I also didn’t want someone running a smear campaign on me.  So it was nice to hear that someone was willing to see things from both sides and, more importantly, they were willing to get that information from both sides before making a decision on ANYTHING.    

Today I am grateful for family and communication.  There’s a lot going on in the world and we get really freaking tired and exhausted and overwhelmed….or at least it seems the women in my life do.  We take on loads and loads of things and we grin and bear it until we break.  That’s not uncommon, I know. But this weekend I was so grateful to have several different conversations, all with my sisters (by family and by chosen family).  Each one came at the perfect time and we were mutually able to help each other.  Community is a powerful thing and having productive conversations that ranged from emotional resolution to proactive planning and care for others and ourselves felt amazing.  It felt wildly relieving even if the topics we broached were heavy at times.  Dealing with life in itself can be heavy, especially in times of transition but those conversations this weekend demonstrated how simply that, just a call, a chat, a virtual meeting can change things.  It felt wonderful.  Forming that kind of community and reestablishing that connection is so needed and we need to stop taking on so much ourselves—or we need to stop pushing ourselves to the point of breaking before we seek help.  That reminder was needed.

Today I am grateful for emotional truth.  There were a few moments this weekend dealing with emotions being revealed and emotions being manipulated and in both circumstances there were different types of truth revealed.  With the latter situation of emotional manipulation, we saw first hand where our emotional stifling comes from and how we shift what we express based on who we are with (I will talk about that more later this week).  In that moment, within seconds, we saw someone go from tearful and unsure of themselves to confident and empowered as soon as they were in different people’s presence.  I don’t know if we can fully call it manipulation to be fair, but it was certainly masking and shifting based on the people present.  The other moment was a long time coming and I’m so grateful to have seen it.  Anyone who has followed this blog for a while knows I’ve been with my husband going on 25 years now and, like any couple, we’ve naturally had our ups and downs—some more severe than others.  He’s always been afraid of showing his true colors because he has always had that subconscious fear of getting hurt.  This past weekend he had a moment where he completely broke through that barrier and he was completely emotionally vulnerable and honest.  I can say that I wish it had happened sooner in life but I am so incredibly grateful it happened now.      

Today I am grateful for witnessing effort.  I’m not talking about the kind of effort that drives people to exhaustion or the effort that causes pain of any kind.  I’m talking about the kind of effort that shows that someone is on board and really with you.  The knowledge that someone has your back is the most comforting thing we could do for each other.  Actually following through and helping each other lifts the weight of whatever that person is carrying right off their shoulders and, this weekend, knowing that I have people in my corner feels amazing.  It feels like there’s a chance to change things, a chance to focus on what really matters.  And if we can do that, if we can shift our focus together and do what we need to do, then that future we’ve envisioned together just might come to fruition after all.  How amazing is that?  Just with a little effort, seeing the “team” come together, makes it all make sense and makes the work to this point seem completely worth it.  It wasn’t the exact path we chose to take to get here—but here we are.  The goal is on the horizon. 

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.

The other night I received a text from a newer friend asking about something we were debating about letting the kids do together.  As the conversation progressed, we got on the topic of another child’s behavior because there were concerns about allowing our children to participate because of this kid.  I’ve been allowing my son to participate how he chooses with his friends and I haven’t intervened with anything because I want my son to trust his own judgement—within reason of course.  Regardless, there were a couple of incidents with this child and my friend’s experience with the parents has been different than my own.  We all raise our kids differently with different expectations and repercussions for certain things but we have all of the kids’ best interests at heart.  But in the course of this conversation, parent politics came up.  She essentially let me know that it was known amongst people outside of my old friend group that something happened with all of us.  Just writing that out felt juvenile, yet, as we talked about the other day, there are a lot of people stuck in juvenile ways.  Someone feels the need to continue this situation by spreading the partial story to others.  Immediately all the old hurt sprang up because this isn’t actually that old of a situation. I had assumed it would stay with the people involved. 

With that old wound open, it got me thinking about how it’s still impacting me.  I want to talk about the cyclical nature of healing along with the impact of outside parties on that healing.  Healing in itself is already a process that ebbs and flows between fine and not fine, even on the best days, and emotional healing can run the entire spectrum in the same minute.  It’s intense and challenging work to dive into various traumas and try to understand why the people closest to us do certain things.  It hurts the most with people close to us because these are the ones we entrust with parts of us that no one else gets to see and that creates a level of vulnerability in that implied trust.  There are different reasons people do things that hurt us whether it’s simply testing the waters, a desire to do their own thing, or even some really nefarious motives and at some point, depending on the nature of the relationship that motive doesn’t even matter: when that trust is broken, part of us breaks too.  But the focus of this topic is the idea that we can be on a certain level of healing and think we have moved on (or are moving on) only to find out the other party is instigating further hurt.  That’s a test even for the most psychologically astute person.  In my mind, logically that says more about the other person than ourselves yet the emotional part of me wants to tear that person apart.  There is never any sense in beating a wounded animal—if we’ve chosen to leave well enough alone, there is no need to beleaguer the point and draw out the pain for someone who isn’t doing anything. 

So why keep pushing and sharing the story knowing full well it could hurt the other people involved? There is a certain level of immaturity there but there’s more.  Is the lack of response making them seek out responses in other ways?  It’s attention seeking but also power seeking because they’re keeping the story on themselves.  They want to control the narrative so they try to get it out their way to as many people as they can.  When they don’t know what’s going on with the other side, they like to fill in the blanks themselves.  The reality is we can’t control what people think or do and we can’t change their perspective either and we need to trust that people can make informed decisions based on the facts.  And even if they don’t, we still know who we are at the end of the day.  The bottom line is people are going to talk no matter what we do—someone always has an opinion to share on the matter and people like to hear themselves speak, they like any spotlight they can get.  Knowing all those reasons doesn’t mean it feels good to find out the discussion is going on all around you about you.  That, too, is something we have no control over so we need to decide to control our own narrative.  I made the decision to not let someone’s version of the story disturb my peace or change how I behave toward others.  I can be their villain if that’s how they see it—I still get to be the hero in mine.  So let them talk.

I had an odd dream about people trying to break into the house, being clearly visible and trying to sneak in all the same.  In the dream I told my son to remember the code word and he said Barracuda.  I asked these people for the word and they said the same, Barracuda.  Then I got nervous, unsure of how to keep them out and I woke very shortly after that.  But the word, Barracuda, kept ringing in my head even while awake.  I searched what barracuda in dreams represents—even though I didn’t dream of the animal itself the repetition was significant enough.  It said that it symbolizes a need to trust instincts, take decisive action, embrace tenacity in pursuing goals; as an aggressive, focused predator, it represents breaking through complacency, resilience, and assertiveness and to be more proactive and work on sharper focus.  That would have felt personal had it not come from my own dreams…the subconscious knows.  Regardless, like many people, I’ve felt on the precipice of something for a while, knowing that more work needed to be done but that it would ultimately bring me where I needed to be, where I’d been wanting to go.  I saw some posts from an acquaintance and I noticed they’d been doing really well with their business and it hit me that it was built from the ground up—to me that was a clear sign that the message was true and accurate—I need to push through complacency.

I’ve been taking the steps necessary to do just that, prioritizing my business, making sure the things I need to do are addressed first but I’ve still be struggling with focus.  I know I need to be more disciplined in my approach yet, at the same time, the things that have been distracting me lately have been consistent: I see clutter and I need to clean it.  I see or hear a snippet of something that resonated and I go down the rabbit hole.  So, I’m giving myself a little grace because I still feel on track, I just need to continue the drive.  I’m starting to see how all of life is a transitional phase because we are never the same person for very long and our roles shift constantly.  Navigating aging, both my own and my family, and realizing what I want to do in life has made it obvious that taking the chance while we can is key.  If the opportunity presents, take it. “Imagine looking back one day and realizing you were courageous enough to chase the life you truly dreamed of.  The one God sewed in your heart and not conform to a life everyone including the enemy tried to shrink you into,” Unknown.  Instead of feeling overwhelm, I feel gratitude that I’ve found the path for me.  I understand the predatory nature of a goal and realize that, while I’ve often spoken against it, now is the time to allow it to consume.  Now is the time to go after it all.  Now is the time to unleash what has been tamed for too long.

It isn’t about the hunt or the kill—it’s about the shaping and curating of the situation to produce the most conducive environment for success.  It’s about the follow through and doing.  The acquaintance I mentioned above is a testament to that.  Taking decisive and clear action produces results.  I started clearing my home, tidying things up, getting ready to purge and clean for spring.  It has felt incredibly cathartic to tap into some of my creative nature with that venture to assist with the decision making—can something be repurposed?  Does it support what I want to do moving forward?  We don’t have to take things so literally.  Life isn’t that serious yet it takes a degree of seriousness (or at least serious intent) to accomplish things.  But what drives me now isn’t the need or the desire to win—it’s the need to live entirely free of the constraints I’ve created and allowed.  Again, for many, this is a turning point because now we can look forward into a future that makes sense for us and we can feel that contentment and happiness and peace that comes from that type of fulfillment.  Fulfilling our soul purpose in spite of any blocks and having the courage to stay true to our own path is the ultimate goal of life.  If we can imagine the impact our drive has on the world, we’d never let ourselves get complacent again.  So spend some time living in what that courage feels like and then take one step closer to that goal.  Take one moment to clear the distraction and see what life looks like on the other side of focus and intent and follow through.  Don’t let anyone plant the seed of doubt in your heart/mind/soul—tend to the spark that seeks to ignite the entire way and feed it until it gleams so brightly the path is assured.

When two things are next to each other we’re forced to compare them.  It’s human nature to look at what’s around us and automatically see what we perceive as lacking.  This Includes our own lives.  Looking at who we were with who we are.  Who we are with who we want to be. It’s a rare thing to look at something and just take it in and realize that some things don’t need to be qualified and organized into any sort of hierarchy.  We’re born to be on the lookout for the “other” as a survival mechanism and we are now socially trained to look at whatever anyone else is doing and see how it looks in accordance with our lives, with our current location.  The issue with comparison in that regard is we automatically devalue one thing over another—again, including our own lives.  The assumption that something is better or looks more like what we think it should means that there is something wrong with the presence of the item being compared.  There is so much context in this world and so many trite sayings I could whip up/find that talk about staying in our lane and simply following the steps/journey we are on—and they’re all true.  We are where we are because that is the journey we are meant to have.  We’re where we are meant to be because if we were meant to be anywhere else, that’s where we would be. That’s not to speak about the need to get things going and motivation and whatnot, just that the path we are meant to be on always finds us.      

As I was saying, there is a reason we compare and there’s even a time it may be helpful, however, we live in this land of perception where because we think someone else has something we want that they must be doing better.  The truth is it’s all relative and this life is not one size fits all.  Wayne W. Dyer says, “Relax, let go, allow, and recognize that some of your desires are about how you think your world should be rather than how it is in that moment.”  We creep into the land of the Should’s and suddenly nothing is enough and everything is wrong.  A mentor once told me, “If you live your life in should, you’ll end up should-ing all over yourself.”  When we think we “should” be something we lose sight of what we are and we trap ourselves in that comparison—and when we live in comparison we never really learn to develop along our own path.  For as long as humans have been around, we haven’t mastered this concept that comparison really serves very little purpose.  We’ve evolved as a species to develop and create amazing things yet we are stuck with this lizard brain component of our minds that still thinks being different means death.  I’ve seen plenty of people I know are alive but they’ve never really lived for the sake of adhering to the rules they were given earlier in life.  Comparison robs us of the lives we are meant to have—you know what they say about living the same year 90 times and not calling it living.

The point in this is that there is value in everything that exists in this world so on that basis alone, there is no need to compare.  We can talk apples and oranges for example.  While they are both fruit, they each provide different nutrients, they taste different, they grow in different environments with different requirements.  That doesn’t mean one is any better than the other—each serves its purpose.  It’s the differences that make things special and the same is true for us.  Humans are meant to express who they are as they are and that is why we’re each born with specific drives, values, and focus.  Order, similarity, and structure may provide a sense of comfort but that isn’t the essence of who we are.  We are meant to find calmness in our own chaos on our own path.  When we dwell in comparison we let our own unique and needed talents collect dust or wither away.  Trying to be something we are not is the most life draining use of energy we can engage in.  So don’t waste time living in comparison.  Spend that time creating the essence of who we are and if we aren’t sure of it, spend time exploring what feels right to figure it out.  Be authentic and honest and that feeling will never steer us wrong. We can’t compare someone’s light to another because we all shine in our own ways in our own time.  Each lights a different path meant for that individual.  Don’t be the cloud that darkens someone else’s path and don’t let thoughts of “should” darken our own.  Just keep shining.       

“The secret to life is to learn how to add more value,” Jim Rohn.  I’m guilty of falling into the habit of looking out for my own interests.  I was raised with an old school generation and old school mentality where whatever work you put into something, you’d get something back for it—you were rewarded accordingly.  That mentality is fantastic and sound as long as we operate in a time where we can back that up and give the rewards promised to everyone who does the work.  With that being said, it’s easy to get disheartened with effort that doesn’t yield the reward we were promised.  It’s hard to keep going when we see nothing happening.  But the key is revealed in the opening quote: it isn’t about what we get out of something—it’s about what we add to it.  That can be hard to believe as we look around us, especially in the social media age, because we see people relishing and basking in self-serving and self-aggrandizing activities that, frankly, do pay off.  We’ve learned to make money making spectacles of ourselves and showcasing our lives as if our lives are some sort of thing to monetize.  When we stop focusing on what we can get and start looking at what we can put in, we see things differently. 

Adding more of who we are to the mix allows us to showcase what’s really important: sharing our purpose for being here.  Value doesn’t come with a monetary end point—some of the most expensive things provide nothing important, or it’s limited resource.  Like spending thousands of dollars on trends—it’s wasteful and it doesn’t last.  It’s true that the things money can’t buy are the most valuable and that means time, the connection to those around us, the ability to express ourselves, the ability to experience the world.  The most valuable things are the ones we create and shape from our own hands and the things that help others to serve their purpose as well.  The things we make as uniquely ours and help us leave a mark.  In terms of legacy, I go back to a piece I wrote about the dash—that little line between our birth and death that indicates all the life in between.  What we do with that time is invaluable and frankly, it doesn’t matter if it’s remarkable or notable or recorded for anyone else—the point is to know we’ve done our best and to leave things a little better than we found them or perhaps a little easier for the next person.

There’s a saying about planting the seeds of trees we know we will never sit in the shade of and that is saying something as far as what truly adds value.  Sometimes we don’t always know we’ve planted a seed and sometimes after we have planted it, it doesn’t always seem like it’s doing much.  Then one day, the plant bursts forth and turns into a tree.  After some time the tree bears fruit all from something we didn’t necessarily understand or believe in the moment.  It’s not always easy to know when to keep going, when to pivot, when to stop but we know what it feels like to do our best and if we can say we did our best then that’s enough.  Our best will always bring out the best for everyone and it isn’t always about what we get out of it in the moment.  Sure, it’s about how we feel in the moment or doing what’s right at the time—but it isn’t always about the reward per se.  It takes years for some businesses to develop and show profit.  It takes time for plants to grow and it takes time to build things that matter so they will last.  The goal, at the end of the day, isn’t necessarily that it turns out exactly as we envisioned but if we were able to make things a little better along the way or make it a little easier for someone in the future.  Energy, focus, and effort compound not only for our benefit but moreso for others and so that person can do more for others as well.  That’s community, that’s life, that’s value.  What have we done to help today?              

I heard someone say, “The men may be gone but the brands still exist,” and it got me thinking about legacy.  It got me thinking about what it means to be intentional about what we want to leave behind.  Questioning what’s important to leave behind. We prioritize different things based on culture, values, and beliefs so that answer changes depending on those factors.  They also change depending on the type of legacy we want to leave.  Are we leaving a legacy in name?  In fortune?  In ethics/values? In infamy? I lived exactly as my parents wanted me to, quiet, in the background, compliant, amenable. I was quick witted and snappy and able to reply but I was to keep myself open and available for anything they may need.  When we leave ourselves open for everyone to use us as they see fit, we lose ourselves.  When we build contingencies for other people’s emergencies into our day, we are overly available and saying that we are open for everyone’s business but our own.  We can’t be so busy helping people make a mark that we erase ourselves in the process.

When we start living for ourselves we operate differently.  We aren’t jumping to reply as quickly as possible to everyone’s messages or demands.  We take our time as we see fit.  We have confidence in the belief that everything happens in its own time and that what is meant for us will come to us.  We finish the workout, we finish the thought, we complete the task we are invested in rather than allowing something else to interrupt us.  We aren’t jumping to meet other people’s requirements and drop what we are doing to appease them.  There’s an assurance in the worth of our actions and we function with purpose.  OUR purpose.  The reason we know people’s names is a result of their actions and the impact/mark they had on society.  Einstein, Freud, MLK, Mandela, Tesla and even including Robin Williams etc. etc.  The reason we know these people is because they did what they did well.  They were real and action aligned with intent to produce beautiful works of art and revolutionary breakthroughs and talent. 

When we give others the power to control our days, we are giving up our autonomy.  I’m not saying some scheduling isn’t necessary or that we disregard people’s needs, I’m saying when the automatic thought is how to rearrange what we want to do around what the other person wants to do or needs done, we make the pieces that make up who we are weak.  We’re trained to give control of our lives to others whether it’s working a 9-5 or bending to meet someone else’s needs and we’re trained to think that’s normal.  It is not normal to let someone else dictate our days.  We are meant to be autonomous, creative, authentic, unique beings who leave a legacy of support and instinct for the next generations to do the same.  Our mark very well may be in helping people and there is something to be said about finding contentment where we are—peace and contentment for all really is the goal.  The best way to do this is to stop overthinking where we’re going or what comes next or what happened before and simply live where we are right now, fully aware and connected in the moment.  So whether we’re designing clothes, writing books, teaching, or saving lives, we all have an impact—our brand will always exist if live with purpose because there is nothing like the legacy of living and loving a life well.            

A little note regarding embracing the spice of life.  There was a story about a woman who carried a bikini around in her bag in case the inclination and opportunity to swim ever hit her—she wanted to be ready.  Her joy was swimming and she wanted to be prepared to partake in the joy whenever she had the opportunity.  There’s something a little romantic in that, thinking of the joy we embrace in the moment.   That is taking in the journey.  There is no hesitation, no inhibition, just unfettered truth and unbridled happiness and contentment.  I want to reiterate something I started to talk about earlier this week which is how seriously we take this life.  No, I wouldn’t advocate for aimlessly wandering and floundering through life, throwing darts hoping something sticks. But I would NEVER advocate for taking life so seriously that we miss the point which is to live.  While cliché, it remains true that we will not live forever and whatever we accumulate on this Earth, whether accolades or material possessions, we can’t take them with us when all is said and done.  With that in mind, it almost makes more sense to carry the bikini with us every day than it does to leave it at home. 

I think that part that sticks out the most for me is the part about experiencing the journey.  I’ve always been one of those destination people, meaning, get me to where I need to go ASAP. While traveling I’ve even thought to myself, “I don’t care that I’m seeing xyz, I came here to see A.”   It never really dawned on me to want to see things on the way to where I was trying to go.  Sure I’d see some cool stuff but I never wanted to slow down and look at anything because we had places to go and if we had time to come back we’d see it later.  There are times it’s necessary to keep moving but there really is all the time in the world to slow down and truly see what’s around us.  We spend so much time focused on movement and winning, often forgetting the simple things like conversation, walks in nature, dinner with friends.  If we rush through all of that we miss a lot of life.  And there is a LOT of life in this world.  We’re meant to experience it and we’re meant to partake in it.  If something catches our fancy, why not take the cue and follow it?  The spice of life is found when we find the nuances buried in certain experiences.  Take the opportunity, find the passion, find the joy—and always have that bikini ready 😊