Next week will be the culmination of the last few months for me. There have been things going on behind the scenes – nothing with Lily, just some time spent reflecting on how to become the person that I see in myself versus the person that I portray to the rest of the world. It’s taken a lot of time, a lot of soul searching and a lot of simple hard work to get to this point, but for me, next week is the beginning of what I hope will be a new chapter in our lives.
I read a play on words this week, “be a goal digger” and it resonated right through me. As we get older and there are more and more responsibilities placed on us it becomes so easy to just roll from one action to another without really getting the chance to stop and think about where these actions will lead us. Our youth allowed us to be proactive while our adulthood seems to create a more reactive environment. And of course, in our youth so many of us, or at least me, spent a lot of time avoiding the proactive and now wishing that I had some of that gift of time back. The choices that we make now, the perceptions that these choices leave with other people stay with us a lot longer than we used to. Opinions are quick to be formed and attitudes harder to change. Ironic since we’re supposed to know better, to accept more easily the flaws of our peers, but sometimes time doesn’t allow that. We don’t always have the luxury of sitting back and trying to understand where another person has come from, what struggles they have faced, what road they have travelled. This is the time that we should be taking, to really feel and empathize with our peers, with our family, with our friends, so that we can be more understanding, more patient. That patience and understand would ultimately lead to having more time, less time spent judging and more time spent appreciating the qualities that we didn’t have time to see before. As they say, youth is wasted on the young.
But I don’t truly believe that, I believe that change is possible at any age, at any time, at any crossroads, if you’re aware of what you want the outcome to be. Do you want people’s perceptions of you as a person, as a worker, as a parent, to change? This means being more honest, more vulnerable than you’ve previously allowed yourself to be. Or do you actually have changes that you want to make? Requiring the time and effort on our own part to be open to seeing the cycle of choices and patterns that have brought you to this place? Maybe they’re one and the same, realizing that in order for the perception to change, the action is allowing yourself to break free of the cycle of automatic answers, quick reactions or closed-off walls. For perceptions to change, perhaps it needs to be a mix of showing that you are capable of change while also opening yourself up to those around you so that they are privy to the choices and decisions you are making. Maybe that’s the goal and you need to allow yourself all of the time and freedom to be a “goal digger”. Changes in life, regardless of the size or impact, always take work. It’s a lesson we should have learned in our youth but it so easy to forget as you get swept up in the everydayness of adulthood. If there is something you want, you need to be willing to dig your heels in and make the change that will bring about your happiness. Whether that happiness is opening yourself up to people or reminding yourself that not every single thought or feeling needs to be shared. Whether it’s a physical goal – running a 5km, learning piano, spending more time reading, or an emotional goal, you have to be willing to let yourself get there and the realization that anything we want takes work. If I want to write more, I need to do the work involved: walking away from the television, tuning out the rest of the world and writing, whether I have something to say at that moment or not. Only each individual can know what defines the work for themselves. It means being open to asking for help to reach those goals – telling people when you need to walk away, seeing a therapist to help shed light in order to break our patterns. Asking for help can, and often is, the hardest part of the journey. Not everyone, and I would dare to say, not a single person, can be a goal digger on their own.
I’ve been reading “Year of Yes” by Shonda Rhimes and a while I’m editing for length, a section yesterday made me stop in my tracks:
“We’ve all been taught to shame and be ashamed. And why wouldn’t we feel ashamed? How could we not feel ashamed? We’re not supposed to have any help. We’re supposed to do it all ourselves….
I don’t know about you but it’s the idea that I’m not measuring up that gets me. I’m constantly worrying and wondering and feeling like I am failing because everywhere I look, everyone else seems to be thriving. The women around me are smiling and their kids are smiling and their houses seem clean and it all looks so great on Pinterest and Instagram and Facebook.”
And so that is my goal. My reason to be a goal digger: to more forgiving of myself and shame others less. At the end of it all, I may not be able to change perceptions or opinions. I may not ever have it all together, I may have to work on being my true self each and everyday, but I will try to have a less harsh definition of failure but forgive myself when I do; I will extend the same measures to those around me. I will remember that we can’t do it all ourselves, that help is okay and support is given out of love and not pity. Most importantly, I will allow the trueness of these statements to be seen. I will allow myself to not always be okay and to be honest about that with those around me. I will work to show that if I am thriving, it’s because I have help and if I’m not thriving, that reality is okay too.