Category: Bathtub epiphanies

I’ve come to the conclusion that the answer to life is hidden in plain sight in the clichés that we groan at every time we hear them. It’s a bit like getting the same advice over and over but choosing to ignore it because you’ve heard it all before and you still have no intention of taking it.

There are many clichés that point in the same direction, yet seem unrelated. Maybe that’s just a matter of interpretation. What about ‘old habits die hard’, and ‘when the going gets tough, the tough get going’? How do we customize old fashioned advice to work in a modern world?

Old habits die hard is truer than gravity. Ask anyone who has tried to quit sugar or smoking and they’ll dislocate their heads nodding in agreement, while munching that smoked cupcake. The feel-good factor of destructive habits is hard to argue with. There’s nothing quite like an icing-laden cupcake when you’re having a shit day or a cigarette to take the edge off a stressful situation. There’s a pile of science behind why we choose things we know aren’t good for us, but I’m not a scientist and not in the mood to paste someone else’s research into this spot. Trust me, there’s science and it’s legit.

Humans are generally creatures of habit. There are opposing arguments on whether that’s a good thing or not. It’s good in the sense that in a world of endless options, having a routine or habit eliminates the need to make decisions and as a result, it saves time in our increasingly busy lives. Not having to decide what’s for breakfast out of the endless options out there saves time in the mornings while trying to juggle getting ready for work, feeding the cat and getting kids ready for school. That’s the plus side.

The flip side of the argument is that we live on auto-pilot and miss out on new experiences for the sake of convenience. Life is boring when you eat the same thing every time you look at a menu. It takes the spice out of life. Not to mention, if your habit includes a bottle of whisky a day, that shit will eventually kill you.

The question is, are you willing to look at your habits? Driving the same route to work, or sitting in the same seat on the train every day are hardly life-altering habits but what about the rest of it? The habits that hold you back in life and the habits that take you in the opposite direction to the life you wish you were living; what about those? You envision a life of serenity where you do yoga all day but you’re sitting on the sofa watching endless reruns of the news showcasing the world’s misery and mayhem.

Before we go down that rabbit hole, think about this: everything in life is a choice. Seriously. Everything. I can already hear the collective groan of everyone disagreeing with that but think about it. Yes, you hate your job and you apparently have no choice, you have to do it. No, Buttercup, you don’t have to do anything of the sort. You have to eat, you have to sleep, you have to poop; everything else is optional. You CHOOSE your prison, every single day. You could just as easily choose to never work another day in your life but the consequence of that choice isn’t something you can live with. What you’re choosing every day is a consequence. The consequence is the money you’re earning doing what you do, or not earning money. Plain and simple. So you do have a choice. You can choose a healthy meal or you can choose a quadruple bacon deep fried cheeseburger with cheesy fries, a super-sized soda and a dozen cupcakes. Good health or a heart attack on a plate with side order of diabetes. Your choice.

The trouble with our default choices is that they’re familiar. We know what they feel like and know what to expect. Yes, we feel like a sack of poo after inhaling a monster-sized, grease-laden meal but at least that’s familiar, right? It’s an acceptable trade-off for the dopamine hit we got when we ate it. Sure, we’ll regret it later when our clothes no longer fit and we’re out of breath walking up 10 stairs but that’s ok because cuppycakes will make us feel happy again.

Choosing something familiar doesn’t involve risk or effort. We’ve chosen the same thing so often, our brains no longer look for other options and our train stops at the same station every time. Picking something else requires effort and maybe a small amount of risk. What if we don’t like the lemon and herb chicken?? What then? We know we like lasagna so why mess with a good thing? No-one likes change. Sure, the first time you had lasagna was a risk. You were brave and it paid off but what if your luck runs out this time and the new option is awful? I mean, luck has to run out sometime, right? This could be that time!

Anyone living in the United States knows that something as simple as ordering breakfast is a complete mine-field involving 18 decisions in a single transaction. Successfully navigating that mine-field once means that’s going to be the go-to map for that decision forevermore. That’s how we are.

Most of us know what we don’t want so let’s start there. If you know you hate your job, then what habits do you have that keep you doing it? Is there something small that could become a habit that could get you moving in a different direction? You come home and park in front of the TV every night. Could you maybe join a group or take a free online class in something you’re interested in? Maybe you hate working in finance and would rather be a chef. Could you teach yourself to cook? There are enough tutorials on YouTube covering every conceivable topic known to man.

You hate being overweight but you stay indoors all day. Go outside, walk around the block, then pick up your mail on the way back in. You have to go to the grocery store, so how about grabbing items on opposite sides of the store? Grab one item in the veg section, then head across to the meat section way over on the other side. Then pick up the next item next to the veg section then the next item from the aisle closest to the meat, etc. Take the most circuitous route around a place you have to go to. 2 birds, one stone and all that clichéd junk.

It takes a level of toughness to break a limiting habit. To change your life, you need to break the habits that hold you back. A life you don’t want is a tough life, so when that life gets tough, GET GOING. The only people who change their lives are the ones who can muster up the guts to try something different. A habit doesn’t have to be huge to be life-altering; it simply needs to be in line with the life you’re trying to create. Small steps in the right direction get you to where you need to go. Yes, the journey of a 1,000 miles begins with a single step blah blah. One thing to remember is starting a new empowering habit is all good and well, but if you’re maintaining an opposing bad habit, then you’re just going 1 step forward and 2 steps back, which is the equivalent of farting against thunder. Totally pointless. You cannot break a bad habit if you keep going back to it.

Look at any highway on the planet and you’ll notice that any attraction worth seeing has multiple signs pointing the way to it. If something is worth a detour, the signs will start popping up miles before the turn-off comes up. When there are that many clichés pointing in the same direction it’s time to take notice. Your dream life is that upcoming attraction so look at the old faded clichéd sign and decide. Are you taking the exit or not?

2 weekends ago, I was relishing the happiness of gardening on my own patch of land. 2 Mondays ago, I went from content to chaos in a matter of hours. It’s funny how quickly life can change. Overnight things can move from order to chaos with no warning.

I’m sorry to say that the chaos consumed me completely. It’s been a roller coaster week which has left me depressed and drained. Just as an FYI here, when someone is losing their shit, absolutely do NOT tell them to calm down. In the history of calming down, not a single person has calmed down by being told to calm down.

This morning I got a package in the mail from a friend in England. A fluffy woolen hat with a pompom. It made me smile to realise there’s a ray of sunshine out there and it’s not all doom and gloom. God bless that woman!

Since moving house, life has been turbulent. Winter, moving, holidays, unpacking, finances, work, visitors, unscheduled mishaps. Writing is my happy place and I’ve made no time for it. It was the first thing to go instead of being the first port of call. Sometimes my thoughts don’t find order until the words appear on the page. I don’t know what I’m thinking until my fingers show me.

I have been so very fortunate to have my own home. Many never have the chance or means. Instead of being grateful for the blessings and opportunities in life, I worried about everything going wrong. And then it did. There’s truth in the saying ‘be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.’ The Law of Attraction is as real as the Law of Gravity. It exists whether you believe in it or not. My worry manifested into the very things I was worried about. It’s happened, so that’s done. Now it’s time to create the solution.

When life turns out all the lights, it’s difficult to find a way out of the maze. So we’ll start small. Laugh at the pompoms. Enjoy the hell out of everything that makes you happy when it makes you happy. Do not defer or neglect your happiness because it is transient. It’s there one minute and can just as easily be gone without warning. Enjoy it when it shows up without worrying about when it will disappear again. If we cannot be grateful for things that make us happy, why would the universe bother giving us more?

Cooking, baking, photography, writing, music, painting. These things make me happy and I’ve made excuses to avoid every single one of them. My kitchen is gutted, can’t cook/bake. It’s too cold outside, can’t go out and take photos. There’s no time to write. My piano is out of tune so can’t play. I haven’t arranged the spare room so there’s no space to paint yet. Enough.

Ask for help; you’ll be amazed how many people are willing to help. Have a wobbly; it’s ok to not be made of concrete all the time. Curl up under a blankie; solutions are clearer when your brain isn’t exhausted. Pamper yourself; it’s allowed! One thing at a time; it’s harder to put out a fire when the hose is pointed at 87 things. Solve something small; it will give you a sense of accomplishment in the chaos. If it’s all falling to pieces, find a kickass battle anthem and play it full volume. Sometimes the warrior within needs a matching soundtrack before she’ll get off her arse and do something.

I came home and nailed up my Saltire. I might not be in Scotland but I have Celtic blood and we’re fiesty as hell when life tests our will. It’s time to draw on that and battle this out.

Find the thing that gives you fuel. The silver linings will find themselves.

Walking used to be a meditation for me yet I’ve somehow managed to avoid it completely for the entire summer. After a lazy day of cooking I dragged myself for a late afternoon walk. There’s something calming about walking the troubles right out of my head. There should be a prescription for this stuff.

After weeks of living in my head and percolating in stress, I’ve been somewhat overdue for a light bulb moment. It turns out it was waiting on the corner for me to pick it up. Maybe epiphanies are really little balls of energy, neatly packaged at random places and we need to walk through them to absorb them.

For years I’ve had this really annoying trait where I’ll sign up for stuff, I’ll pay for it, then I’ll sit back and do nothing. Martial arts classes, cooking classes, photography, travel writing, nutrition courses, exercise programmes, things; I’ll sign on the dotted line, swipe my card, pay for it, then let it gather dust in a corner and ignore every single reminder to attend. Let me assure you, 97% of anything I’ve ever signed up for has gone unused and ignored. Even Groupons to the spa. How stupid is that?

I like the easy way out. It’s as if swiping my credit card on another fad eating plan or online course will magically make me whatever it is that I just paid for. Instantly. No effort required. No risk. It’s probably best if I don’t tally up the cost of those things….

Fear has a huge voice in my life. Fear of failing; fear of not being enough; fear of not being perfect; fear of getting it wrong and making an arse of myself. I won’t attempt something unless I know there’s a 99% chance I’ll get it right on the first attempt so I’ve essentially shelved almost everything I desperately want to do.

I’m dumb, what can I say?

My brain jabbered on at me for 2.5 miles this afternoon. Last week I signed up for a class in photography; specifically how to sell photos and create an income stream from that. A few years ago, it was a course in travel writing. I’ve never written a single thing nor did I finish the course.

This time has to be different and I am the only one who can make that a reality. The nuts and bolts of it comes down to: what do I fear most about this? Do I even want to do stock or fine art photography?

For the first time it hit me that the reason I have avoided every single thing that could improve my life is because I hinge everything on it doing just that. Improving my life. I hinge my entire future happiness on this one thing saving me instead of doing a class for the pure fun of it. My career path has never brought me an ounce of happiness and I’ve spent close on 2 decades trying to figure out what I’d rather be doing. Anything but this! So I’ve viewed writing and photography as the sole escape routes out of my current misery. Talk about pressure….

You cannot remove air from a glass. You can only move the air out by filling the glass with something else. It’s the same with living. You cannot remove the negatives from your life. You can, however, fill your life with things that make you happy, which reduces the space available for the negatives.

I’ve taken the things I enjoy doing; writing and photography, and I’ve tasked them with supporting my entire life financially. Given that very few people write a best selling book or sell a million dollar photo on their first attempt, I’ve written my creativity off as something that will never work because I can’t succeed immediately. I’ve played it safe instead of enjoying the hell out of it. I’ve left the dream safely locked in its box, undamaged, while I stare longingly at it every day. The risk of loss has been deemed too high to risk trying. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, having a passion outside of the office will probably restore my sanity in a similar way to what I’ve been hoping for all along.

In reality, the biggest loss already happened. I’ve forked out a pile of cash and the second I swiped my card, those funds were lost to the ether. Gone. I didn’t mourn the loss for a second.

So if the biggest loss has already happened, there’s nothing left on the line. Absolutely nothing. Creativity just wants to manifest itself into something. Anything. Taking that photo and writing the article/story/whatever, is all that needs to happen. There’s nothing else it needs to do other than bring me pleasure from doing it. That’s it. There’s no other sacrifice on the altar.

So what if I submit them to stock agencies and they’re rejected? What did I actually lose? Nothing. I had nothing before I sent them in, nothing after they were rejected; net result: same. If anything, the rejection will come with a lesson on what I did wrong and how to improve, which will result in a better picture next time. Bonus!

Not everyone will like what I write. It’s been like that for every writer since the dawn of time and it will always be that way. I don’t need to please everyone. Hell, I don’t need to please anyone. Gone are the days when we had to convince a publisher to give us a chance; we can self-publish or just fling it into the void like I do on this blog. Maybe people read it, maybe they don’t. But I wrote it so it exists, which is what writing is at the end of it. Goal achieved. Writing orders my thoughts and helps me understand myself. If it helps someone else do the same, great.

Fear is essential for self-preservation and our brains are exceptionally great at it. However, fear doesn’t need to be set to DEFCON 1 24/7/365. We can relax the settings a bit. Fear is the jailer that keeps us in one place for as long as we let it. Yes, the gate is locked but the key is in the cell with us. We can unlock it at anytime; we just choose not to. We quietly sit in the corner, plotting our escape but are constantly on alert in case our jailer returns and catches us mid-escape. Can’t possibly risk that.

Well, listen up people. The jailers abandoned this place decades ago; there’s no-one left but you. You’re all alone in that cell with no-one around for miles to stop you from unlocking the door and just leaving the fear behind. So stop waiting for an engraved invitation to take a chance on your happiness.

Ya coming?

 

Life leaves little clues to the lessons you need to learn. At least, that’s how it’s starting to look from here. The past few days have been something of an eye-opener and not the comfortable kind either.

My best friend’s youngest brother was killed unexpectedly in a motorcycle accident a week ago. It’s definitely left a mark on their family, especially as he was the youngest. Thankfully, he lived his life making time for things he loved. There’s a lesson to be learned there. Unfortunately, the point was only driven home when he died.

Another close friend has been working all the hours God sends. Weekends, weekdays past midnight. Crazy hours. For what? Money? Serving some machine that demands ever more from its employees? Or would those be slaves to wages and success?

Colleagues working crazy hours and being pressured into working weekends; trading precious free time on someone else’s whim. Coming in early and leaving late, all the while apologising for having a life outside of the office and needing to catch a flight for a vacation they’ve planned for ages.

Even the list of movies people have been hounding me to watch are about living a life of passion, consequence and happiness. Life isn’t about perfection or being blissfully happy every minute of every day. There are bumps in the road but if the destination is happiness, then the sacrifices are worth it.

This bullshit needs to stop. As in NOW. When are we going to stop trading our irreplaceable time on things that tie us down? Yes, we need to earn a living. We also need to LIVE! When we spend more time LIVING at the office instead of actually LIVING our lives, then someone needs to slam on the brakes and call a time-out.

We all have at least one thing that we dream of doing. Maybe it’s a place or an experience, or maybe it’s even a thing we dream of possessing. Whatever it is, wouldn’t now be the time to do something about it? We aren’t guaranteed a tomorrow. Andre wasn’t. At 54 he still had years of life ahead. A life he wasn’t granted.

Women spend too much time apologising for doing what they want. Men don’t apologise.

I’ve been on the fence recently about relocating. Not because I don’t want to be in Scotland but because I’m afraid. Usually when I make up my mind to go, it’s never been more than 3 months from decision to departure so there’s never really time to think about it. I decide and then I go and I figure it out as I go along.

This time the gap between decision and departure is a year and that’s given me time to overthink it. Worry about when would be the best time to go. Is it too soon? Will it be too late? Do I want to start dating here? Should I wait until I go? Stupid things keeping my life in limbo because I’m worried that living will make me happy and I won’t want to leave.

Have you ever heard anything so stupid?! Delaying happiness in case it keeps me in one place. So what if I stay? So what if I go? When will I stop making excuses and choose happiness instead?

Enough. This is bullshit.

After months, I’ve finally given myself the name I wanted. The baggage tied up with my old name is safely tucked away behind me and each day another place updates my existence with my new name and another piece of the old me fades away into obscurity. Soon that name will be erased and the things that have kept me tied to the past will go with it.

The woman I’ve always wanted to be sucks the juice out of life. Every last drop of juice until every delicious flavour has been tasted and savoured.

I could sit here and worry about the 20 lbs I haven’t lost so I can be the world’s version of acceptable; or I could lie here naked, admiring the curves that look like a Renaissance painting, drinking a glass of wine and having cake for dinner because it pleases me.

What life do you want? I want to live a stone’s throw from history with the continent a short hop away. I want a job that takes up minimal time while paying me a fair wage. My time is worth more than being someone’s profit minion. Making 6 figures working for a boss isn’t on my agenda. I’d much rather do it working at something I love.

It’s time to work your job around your life, not your life around your job. You deserve that much. If it doesn’t make you happy, you have to choose: Leave it; change it; accept it. Those are your options. Pick one and be happy.

Ok, so this isn’t a cliché but it’s a fairly accurate summary of what’s on the menu today.

Since I’ve started looking for common themes in daily life, it’s tragic how often self-loathing and self-pity rear their ugly heads. I have been guilty of both to varying degrees at various points of my life.

It’s difficult to say if social media is to blame for perpetuating it, or just the media in general. Is it more prevalent now or is it that we’re hearing about it more than ever before because we make our lives accessible to everyone 24/7? People are now entitled to every little detail of our lives on demand.

The middle ground is shrinking; crushed between the need to be seen as successful and on the other side, total apathy and neglect. The pressure to succeed in today’s world is astronomical. The smallest ‘failure’ can go viral in a matter of hours if the person ‘failing’ is famous enough. A bad hair day or fashion faux pas makes front page news so the entire world can scrutinize the images until every pore has been analyzed to death.

The pressure doesn’t magically leave you unscathed until you reach adulthood. The fact that preschoolers have entrance interviews is proof the world has gone completely batshit crazy. They have no idea how much their future is riding on getting into the ‘right’ schools. They just want to play with their friends.

Then school starts and it becomes about what cars do the parents drive, what do they do for a living, wearing the latest clothes, how much are you donating to the school and if it’s not enough, your child is excluded from the crowd that can afford to give. Good grades, subject choices, sports, extra-curricular activities in the quest to become a well-rounded individual. It simply won’t do that you aren’t signed up for something! While you’re at it, you’ll need to be equally brilliant at all of it or there’ll be a letter to the parents pointing out your shortcomings.

The pressure to get high grades mounts each year until you realize your entire future is pointless because you flunked a test in some dumbass subject that doesn’t matter anyway. Well you didn’t qualify for the cripplingly expensive college that may guarantee you a job. The fact that you’ll probably end up starting out your adult life under the burden of student debt that would rival buying house is another matter entirely.

In among all of that is being bombarded by how to look, what to eat, what to wear, what’s in and what isn’t, the latest must have gadget that costs a kidney, which car you should be driving and what traits your ideal mate should have.

Social media is saturated with photos of every meal we consume, photos of the perfect moment and nauseating declarations of undying love for the person they’re sitting next to on the sofa. God forbid they should tell the person to their face. It apparently doesn’t count if their nearest and dearest don’t have virtual ring-side seats to the event.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, you’re sitting on your sofa, alone in your non-designer PJ’s eating beans on toast because you’re in debt up to your eyeballs from trying to keep up.

Your friends have the perfect bodies, the ideal mate, the house with the picket fence, 2.5 kids and a dog. They just bought a new car and got a promotion. You’re Mayor of Sadsville with an average life.

About 18 months ago, I had a bathtub epiphany. For most of my life I’ve been trying to live up to being someone else. The kid with her shit together, married with kids and a husband that brings in enough money so I don’t have to work while swanning around doing yoga and driving the car pool.

Enter stage left: Bathtub epiphany.  I’ve spent years feeling never quite good enough; years spent feeling like a complete failure because all the other kids were married with kids and a house.

It turns out I was hating myself and piling on the self-loathing and pity for not winning a race I never entered. The things that made me a failure where things that weren’t on the To Do list in the first place.

By society’s definition of success, I was a complete failure. Except I wasn’t. Sure, I’d like to meet someone amazing and get married someday but I don’t have my future wedding planned out in my head. I am too nomadic to commit to buying a house. Dear God, picking a city to live in is an epic mission, never mind ONE HOUSE. That takes a level of commitment I don’t have.

Kids. Oh hell no. I’m sure they’re lovely and there are thousands of women out there who’d give their all to have one. I am not that woman. Sleep deprivation isn’t on the menu and I feel cornered the minute people want too much from me. When cornered I bolt for the hills and nothing short of Her Majesty’s Royal Navy is going to stop me once the exit has been chosen. It’s a wise person who knows their limitations.

That in itself gets people riled up to the nth degree. Tell someone you don’t want kids and it’s like you’ve admitted to killing puppies. Someone once asked me outright what was wrong with me. I’m not easily offended but THAT hacked me off in Technicolor. How about it’s none of your damn business? People do not realize how deeply offensive it is to ask someone what their plans are on child-bearing.

Has it occurred to you that maybe one or both of the couple can’t have kids? Or maybe they’ve just miscarried but no-one knew they were expecting? Maybe they just don’t want any? Maybe it’s an affordability issue? Maybe they’re in debt up to their eyeballs because fertility treatments cost the earth and this is their last chance? Maybe…. You should just worry about your own vagina for a change? Just an idea.

The perfect life I was trying to emulate turned out not to be that perfect after all. While there’s no house to call my own, or husband that I come home to, I have some amazing memories and experiences. I have freedom and that means more to me than anything on this planet.

There’s so much focus on success, however you choose to define it, that we often don’t see how many people have shut themselves off in a bid to cope. Depression is so mainstream you’re almost strange if you haven’t been depressed at least once. We dull our senses with depressants, drugs, cigarettes, alcohol and whatever else is available to get away from the guilt of not being good enough; because we’re not meeting someone else’s expectations. People are tuning out of their lives; in some tragic instances ending it completely.

The quest to be perfect has become so obsessive that people spend hours loathing their reflection because they had an unscheduled snack that amounts to nothing in the grand scheme of the universe. It’s OK to have a minute of pleasure every now and then without having to punish yourself for it.

How much pressure are you putting on yourself? I’ll play Devil’s Advocate and ask are you maybe inadvertently pressuring those around you to perform to your standards? Each person’s dreams and goals are as unique as they are so maybe take a minute before judging someone else’s success or failure.

Before you pile on the self-loathing and pity from having ‘failed’, you might want to check if the thing you’re killing yourself to achieve is something you actually want. Or are you living up to someone else’s expectations of what you should want?

Perfectionism is self-abuse of the highest order – Anne Wilson Schaef

Listen to Anne; you might be able to ditch a ton of baggage at this stop.

This should be glaringly obvious but we’re a stubborn species; we’ll try and prove this one wrong all day long. We get our clichés confused and insist that impossible is actually ‘I’m possible’. We undertake an epic attempt at being The Little Engine That Could in our quest to please everyone.

Then we hit a wall. Sometimes gently but most times going full speed. The shattering realization that you’ve thrown your energy into a bottomless well that will never give you water.

Taking a step back to gain perspective is necessary and at times soul-destroying. It was for me. I rearranged my entire life as a pre-teen when my parents divorced. The choice was Mom or Dad. How does a 10 year old make that choice? It wouldn’t be an easy choice as an adult; it’s practically impossible as a child.

My kid logic looked at the question very simplistically. If I choose Mom, Dad will be hurt. If I choose Dad, Mom will be hurt. I love them both so who do I hurt? I couldn’t choose so I went to live with my Grandmother from the age of 12. My choice.

Needless to say my life turned out differently than it might have if I’d chosen a different path. In some ways I think it was the best decision; in others it stunted my emotional development. More than a decade disappeared into the Bermuda Triangle of depression. The darkest years of my life when I could barely get myself going every day and I still threw the miniscule amount of energy I could find into making sure no-one got hurt. Everyone around me needed to be happy.

There are different levels of being a people-pleaser. I took the express train into the wall. Thankfully the wall was at Flight Center and I booked a ticket the hell out of my life. I relocated my will to live to distant shores and set up my life in England.

Being geographically separated from the people I’d been trying to please since I could sit up straight made a world of difference. I was finally myself.

It’s not easy choosing yourself when you’ve never done it before. It’s harder realizing that the people you’ve so carefully ‘protected’ and sacrificed for would not do the same for you if the roles were reversed. I’m not referring to parenting here, that’s a different scenario altogether.

Each person is solely responsible for their own happiness. Happiness is a conscious decision. It’s not a guaranteed response to what’s going on around you. You cannot consciously choose for someone else to be happy if they are not making that same decision for themselves.

There are people who are naturally optimistic and then there are the others. I am sometimes that other. The one who is angry all the time and more than a little bit negative. Most times it’s something getting on my wick, I blow a fuse, vent some crazy and then I feel better again.

The others are the ones who expect happiness to knock on their door with a string quartet in tow. Happiness knocks but they don’t open the door because who the hell is bugging me at this hour?!

This might be a crazy analogy but when you’re a people-pleaser, you’re a bit like a window washer. You’re cleaning everyone else’s windows except your own but you can only ever reach the outside windows. You can’t clean someone’s windows from the inside, that’s their domain. So they can have the cleanest damn windows on the outside, but if they haven’t cleaned the gunk off the inside, they’ll never appreciate the view. People who thrive off people-pleasers are not the window-washing type. They’ll always have dirty windows on the inside so your efforts will have been for naught.

When you live your life entirely to make other people happy at your own expense, they get to live twice. They live their own life and they live yours too. You don’t get to live at all. Before you throw more of yourself into a one way transaction, remember that time is irreplaceable. You might want to be careful where you spend it because every minute you spend trading your happiness for someone else’s, is one minute closer to the end of your clock.

Funnily enough, this little nugget has been rearing its head a lot lately. The irony is that the pastures we’re trying to escape are probably the same pastures we ran to with open arms in the not too distant past.

I see this in my own life and recently I’ve been noticing it in others too. Is it part of the human condition to never be satisfied?

In my own life it’s disguised as the need to keep moving. The constant whisper in my head that something needs to change. The change is never clear and eventually frustration drives me out of my mind and I go all in, balls to the wall and just change it all. That way I’m likely to find the offending culprit because nothing stayed the same.

That’s the call now. Pack. Move. Go. GET OUT OF HERE. Yet only 5 short years ago I was on the piece of land I’m now longing to return to. I was living in England and packing up my life to move here because I was just sick of it all. I needed a change. So I changed.

I envisioned a life here, the friends I would have and the things I would do. I would live.

Turns out the plan got lost in the move. I left my friends behind and moved to a place where I became the square peg in the round hole. Stubbornness has stopped me from rounding my edges to fit in. Why should I?

My aunt told me once that I need to maybe be less honest when dealing with other people. Not in the sense that I should lie to them but tone down my life experiences ‘because it intimidates people.’ Tough. Sorry but just because you’ve never crossed a state line in your life doesn’t mean I’m going to pretend I’m like you. I’m not.

I moved my life to this pasture and I didn’t water it. My life was lived in half measures that didn’t make the best use of the energy I expended living. The grass died and it’s a pretty damn barren field right now. Meanwhile the field I left behind is so green it burns my retinas.

Maybe it’s a design flaw in humans. No matter how much we have, we need and want more. I see it in the people around me. We fault and complain about our jobs for whatever reasons; not enough money; don’t like the people we work with; not enough time off; the list is endless. So off they go and look for new jobs with better money, nicer people, a boss they can live with and all the other magic ingredients that make up a greener pasture.

Voila. Found it. New job and off they go. For a few weeks you hear about how amazing it all is and all the new magic stuff they get that they never got before. The people are great, the perks are pure magic and finally they’ve arrived at the greenest pasture ever grown.

Fast forward 3 months, 6 months, maybe a year and it’s back to ‘FML, I hate this place. I hate my job. I need more money. I don’t earn enough. I’m sick of working hard and getting no reward and recognition for it. My boss wants too much and I’m out.’

Where was the tipping point? On what day did the scale fall out of balance back onto the barren pasture side of the equation? Or is it that our lives expanded into the new pasture so completely that it sucked the life out of it? Our lives now need infinitely more to be satisfied and the cycle starts again.

How much is enough? Or do we even have ANY clue as to what would make us happy?

Happiness is a fairly nebulous concept when you think about it. Maybe it has a colour or a sound to it. Maybe it has a shape. Maybe it has none of those things. It floats up in the next pasture like a will-o-the-wisp luring us forward only to disappear the minute we reach it and pop up in the next field; taunting us to a never-ending game of catch.

The grass is greenest where you water it. So what stops us watering it with love and attention? What prevents us from tending the pasture when we arrive? Is it that we’re distracted by the will-o-the-wisp in the next field and gardening duties just fall by the wayside while we try to chase it down? Do we spend any time enjoying the view from the new pasture before setting our sights on the freakishly green one over the next hill?

I haven’t given one iota of care and attention to my life here. I’ve lived, paid my bills and traded my hours for money. Well….. actually that’s not entirely true. I’ve travelled more than I ever have before. I’ve seen my bestie almost every year since I moved here because she’s just a hop over the border in Canada. We’ve gone diving in Mexico which was never on my list of places to go and I loved it! I’ve visited cities it never occurred to me to see and they’ve all been incredible. I’ve made some great lifelong friends. I’ve spent time reconnecting with my family which are bonds I’d never nurtured before. They mean a lot to me now.

Those were the flower beds I planted in my field. Some of those will continue to bloom each year, coming back better and more beautiful than the year before. Others will die off as seasonal plants do. They were beautiful in their time and they will fade from view to be replaced by something new.

Switching pastures is a tedious affair, make no mistake about that. So before you do it again, decide if the new pasture will be worthy of your care and loving attention because that’s what it’s going to take. If you want it to be burn-your-eyes-green, you need to appreciate and care for it. Enjoy the view and stop obsessing about the field over the fence. It’s just another field.

The search for meaning in mundane clichés has yielded some unexpected nuggets of clarity. Well, maybe that’s not entirely correct; I did expect to find meaning. What I didn’t expect is how relevant that meaning would be.

Let’s start with ignorance is bliss. Oh the irony… I don’t suffer fools gladly so out of all the clichés that could possibly hold meaning, this was the last one I thought I’d ever find wisdom in.

The start of a new year generally brings new beginnings, resolutions we mean to keep in the hope they will bring meaning and balance to our frenetic lives. We all do it, even knowing as we do that those resolutions will probably fall by the wayside before the month is out. The hardcore among us manage to pull off some of their resolutions; the rest of us are sipping hot chocolate with extra cream even while bemoaning that blasted 10 lbs. that just won’t shift.

My only resolution for this year is to be happy. Find what makes me happy and do that. Never mind the weight, forget winning the lottery; just be happy!

This means simplifying, decluttering and making room in my days for happiness to intrude. I whittled down my e-mail lists, cancelled subscriptions and I stopped reading the news. I went from reading news sites dozens of times a day to nothing. Complete cold turkey on anything remotely news related. The only exception is I still check the weather because that’s just sensible.

If there’s been a shooting/bombing/murder/robbery/riot/racist incident/terrorist threat, I don’t know about it. It’s been 24 days of no news articles. Nada. And let me tell you, BLISS! Ignorance really is bliss!

The constant inundation of bad news and tragic events isn’t necessary to function. Information overload doesn’t always serve the cause. When you click into a news site, you have no control over what’s going to be in your face. You can control whether or not you actually read the entire article, but there’s no control over all the car crash headlines jostling for your attention. The headlines suck us in with the lure of gory details; it’s like a car crash that sickens you to your stomach but you can’t look away.

We don’t need to be hooked up to every little thing in life. People are so afraid they’ll miss something that they’re constantly monitoring everything to make sure nothing slips by them. Here’s a question. Does having all of this extra information make you any happier?

It doesn’t make me one iota happier knowing that Kim Whatsherface has decided she’s only going to eat foods that start with a P or wear her hair in a side parting instead of tied up. Who gives a damn?

It’s time to pull the plug on all the meaningless and depressing bullcrap that doesn’t matter to you. By all means, be informed if you need to be but don’t drown yourself in every little detail. If you can live without it and it doesn’t make you smile, kick it to the curb. You can’t get flustered and uptight about things that aren’t on your radar and therein lies the bliss.