2018 has been an interesting year for me. To say it didn’t quite go as planned is an understatement. In January I had some really big plans and a really tight schedule planned out. There was so much I wanted to do that by March I felt burnt out and discouraged.
Nothing was quite going my way.
Things weren’t bad, they just weren’t as good as I wanted. I wasn’t as healthy as I wanted to be. I wasn’t writing as much as I wanted to be. Several relationships in my life weren’t where I wanted them to be.
So, for a bit, I let it all go.
I dropped several major volunteer obligations, politely excused myself from the school’s Class Mom list, practiced saying no, and took the time I needed to really evaluate where I wanted to go and where I was.
While doing that I noticed two very large problems with myself. The first was that I’d built up a habit of hate. I was angry with myself, my parents, my neighbors, my elected officials, everyone. I hated how I looked. I hated how I was feeling. I hated dealing with anyone. It wasn’t intentional, it more of a lingering bad mood. One bad day with unmet expectations would turn into two, a week would go by and then I’d ruin a month by being angry at myself.
Letting go of that was harder than expected.
Negativity is really very addictive. It’s easy to find flaws. It’s easy to expect the worst of everything. It’s easy to dismiss things and not let them touch your heart because it keeps you from getting hurt.
But that doesn’t make it a healthy place to live.
For my own mental health, I needed a more positive outlook. For me that meant taking a breath, letting go of a lot of built up negativity, and focusing on What Is.
Not what had happened.
Not what I expected to happen.
Not what I wanted to happen.
What Is.
Moment by moment, what does my life look like? What is today’s truth? What is the situation right now.
That led me to the second thing I needed to change. I was getting very good at spotting problems, but I wasn’t bringing any solutions to the table. I was standing to the side, watching people do things, and critiquing them. As a person, and as an author, that’s not a good place to be.
So the next for me is stepping back into life. Volunteering again. Finding solutions. Trying to fix what I see wrong in the world while being as tolerant and forgiving as anyone can in this day and age (which means being tolerant of people who are living, allowing people to learn from their mistakes, and not making time for Nazis because whether someone has the right to live is not a topic that’s open for discussion).
So… this is me, coming back to the drawing board. Trying to be a better person, to myself and other people, and moving forward accepting what I have to work with. It’s not perfect, it may never be what I want it to be, but I can work with it, and that’s the important part.