Flourishing

Picking a path and making a decision is one of the most difficult obstacles I'm facing at the moment. Part of it is that there's too many options to choose from.

My dad said to me not too long ago that to live one needs food. To acquire food, one needs money. It's a simple cause and effect relationship. He said the challenge is that, in this country, food is abundant and doesn't require much money.

Sometimes, well many times, it's really difficult for me to not see things his way. He's right. All we do need to survive is food. Shelter is good, but food more important. All the extras or luxuries of our culture are unnecessary. Again. I see his point. And. It's difficult for me to not feel drawn to his theory. I mean, do we really need that brand new flat screen TV, do we really need the most updated and swanky furniture, do we really need the luxury car or the giant house. No. The answer is really really simple, we don't need them. Not at all. Actually not in the slightest.

Maybe by going after all these things we're feeding into a compulsion, kind of like a monster. We're drawing ourselves away from our true selves, our potential, what we can most freely and authentically contribute to this world to both help it and advance it. The process of wanting, then acquiring, then using, then disposing of these things clutters our mind. Or does it?

One can argue that it's part of who we are to have things. It expresses our personality. It individuates us. I guess the answer is that, sure, it does. One can say that their profession, their sense of style, what they choose to purchase is all a way of expressing themselves.

I say yes, but the key is that it should be done in moderation, it should be done because one truly and genuinely gets happiness from it, and last, it helps the person be a better person. It supports and fosters their purpose.

Playing the Game

There's something about this world, about a culture, about a society, and about the self. There's two ways to live-one can either survive or one can flourish.

We all start with the notion and desire to want to flourish. Children, from infancy, want to love and be loved, they want to explore, they want to question, they want to try new things, they want to learn.

Children are energetic, give it their all and then take time to rest, to recharge. Children don't think of playing a game, at least not in the sense that I'm referring to here...maybe a little sand castling, but that's it. Children don't really think about what they should or not be doing.  How they are or should be acting. If someone likes them or doesn't like them. Children do not judge or worry about being judged by others. 

Children just are...

It's not until the world, culture, society, and eventually their self invade that things change. And they change in ways that aren't always positive. Ones upbringing is what determines how these four players can have an effect on a child, who eventually turns into me and you. If the world is seen as a scary and manipulative place, or if ones culture is something that one needs to be hide from, or if society is always out to get you, or if ones self turns on them...well then, one is left in a very deep, dark, uncontrolled, and lost space. 

And in order to survive one starts Playing the Game. 

This game is a means of getting through life. When one is playing the game they don't realize it. They look around at everyone else and convince themselves that they too are playing the game. Maybe some are.  

But not everyone is...

There's those. The actualized. Those who are flourishing or advancing in the world, their culture, society, and their self. Instead of just surviving. 

But, anyone can decide to stop Playing the Game. To become one of the minority who live life with more meaning, more passion, more emotion, more love, more satisfaction, more appreciation.

It's a choice to pull yourself out of the burning car and choose a new path that you decide the landscape of. 

Hobbies

There are some moments in life that one feels great. Other moments when one feels sad. And there are moments when one feels numb or empty.

That's how I feel this morning. I'm about to leave for my part time job, where I'm spending time as a chef in kitchen, and I feel like I'm heading to something unfulfilling. Sure, it's something I enjoy doing, it's a hobby to me. It where I go when I want to express myself and be creative. But to do it for 8 hours a day, I'm finding, is not something that's filling me up.

I remember when I agreed to the job, I said I wanted to spend time in the kitchen because it was a place where I could cook and be meditative. I still feel that way about it. I feel that this is what cooking is for me. I think we all have hobbies that calm us down, help us sort out our unconscious, and get back to being ourselves.

It's good to have these activities. Not everyone can meditate or sit through yoga. Some need to be active to calm their minds. I have family members who do all their thinking while cleaning. It works for them.

Mine is cooking. Right now, I'm devoting twenty hours a week to it. But I'm getting itchy. I need to be fulfilled. I need to start on the path of getting to a place where I know I'll be fulfilled.

I'm learning that my hobby is not my calling. It's my hobby.

I'm okay with that.

The Morning After

Today is the morning after my one year anniversary. When the announcement was made last year that I was to be the new "So and so" because of my talents of "X-Y-Z" I remember sitting there frozen. Feeling like a fraud. In a way I wasn't a fraud, because I had worked hard (by doing all the things I knew I should do) to get a position like this. But what felt fraudulent was all those steps I had taken, all those things I had done, had been, in a large part, carefully choreographed and orchestrated.

So what's wrong with that? For a long time I really thought there wasn't anything wrong with that. That this was how the world worked. You get somewhere, figure out how to play the game, play it, and then advance to the next rung of the ladder. Make more money, buy the dream home, frolic in the vacation time. Maybe this was the way the world worked. Heck, I believed it for a long time. And for many people they probably do believe it and go about their lives living it like this. But the difference between me and them is that the knot, that had formed in my stomach, as a result of living this way...well it was growing and becoming tighter. 

I felt that it had taken a hold of my innards and was tugging at everything-my stomach, my heart, my lungs. I was gasping for air, but there was less and less to be had. Finally, I felt so sick that I collapsed. My life collapsed around me and I didn't blink. I mourned and felt lost and felt hopeless and inadequate, but I didn't blink about letting go of it. It was a like a cancer that had gotten a hold of me that I now wanted to scape out of my body. So I let go of it all and held myself. 

Days passed. Huge chunks of time, where looking back, I can't remember what was accomplished. Most likely nothing because I sat there in my own headspace, with only my journal at times. Everything was so hard to do. Even preparing something to eat seemed like a mountain. The only piece of my life that I wanted to hold onto, even though I felt I had nothing to give to it or nurture it, was my relationship to my husband. 

Even though I wanted to tear everything in my life apart, piece my piece. Even though the tornado came through and whipped everything around and tore my heart to shreds. The one main reason I was able to gather everything and temporarily duck tape it together was because of the strength I received from the love we have. That love is what gave me the energy to get to the place of numbness. This place where the storm has passed and now the clean up and new beginnings will start. 

As I sit here this morning on this day after and feel the warmth of the sunshine through my large window I feel blessed. I feel blessed for the opportunities that life has ahead of me. I feel blessed for this year of madness that has passed. I feel blessed for the lessons that life has taught me these past ten years that I've essentially been on my own. 

I know what's next in my life...

The next phase is to know myself, to become whole, to start living the life I was meant to live, to be who I am and to trust and embrace all of this that we call the universe. Because without us it wouldn't be what it is and with it we wouldn't be who we are...

I am thankful for this morning after....

Quarterlife Crisis...The Beginning

I'm in the midst of a quarter life crisis. A year ago today my life dramatically changed. This date, one year ago, I thought. No I truly, honestly, believed that I would never be happy again. I felt that life had gone my way for so long and that the life I had built was so perfect, I had been so happy. All the lego pieces fit into each other perfectly and I was happy. But then everything crumbled...and I believed that life had finally caught up to me, it was the end of my youth of my happiness and that I had to accept this new life of mine, where I would be miserable. That's just the way it was suppose to be and I just had to suck it up and carry on.

What happened this day one year ago was actually suppose to be a wonderful step forward. I had just received an amazing promotion. One that few my age would have ever received at my profession. Everything that came with it-the perks, the prestige, the money was all anyone could ask for. I had worked hard for this promotion. For five years I worked as hard as I could, I not only showed up to meetings, but I really showed up. I participated in professional development that I didn't have to, I always went the extra mile, I said the right things at the right time, I smiled, I never complained, I supported, I praised. I was the perfect employee.

I felt strong last year. I started running, something I would have never imagined I could ever do. I even signed up and completed three races.

My love life was also great. I was married to a wonderful man, had been for four years, been together with him for eight years. I was lucky to have found the love of my life and expect for a few small bumps, had built an amazing life with him.

I had it all. Great job, financial security, wonderful husband, athletic goals achieved. I was chugging through my twenties on the smoothest road possible. Looking in for the outside, people thought I had it all. Dang, I thought I had it all.

But then my life fell apart...

I fell apart....

I died. I felt like I was dying. And looking back, I see that on this day, my perfect life, that I thought was perfect, vanished.

It was like a tornado came through and whipped through my heart. Shook up my core, swirled everything around, and left. And my body was left to pick of the pieces of this severely scattered heart and somehow figure out what to do next.

What was next was what's happened this past year. It was to pick those pieces up and put them together somehow. I've worked hard this past year. I've picked up the pieces alright, haphazardly arranged them together and ducked taped the entire mess just barley into place.

But that's where I'm at. Still a lot of work to do.

I sit here. One year later in this state of numbness. Yes, I'm functioning--eating, moving about, talking to others, which is much progress made. But numb. Confused. Uncertain. Emotionless, but emotional at the same time. Looking for signs around me. Waiting for something to throw me a rope.

My first year of my quarter life crisis has come and gone. And I feel like it's only just the beginning....