Journey

"Life is a journey, 

Not a destination, 

There are no mistakes, 

Just chances we've taken

Lay down your regrets cause all we have is now."

-India Arie

We are told, emphatically and often, that life is a journey.  We all logically believe this. Yet we usually act in the polar opposite direction. I have had a lot of time to think during my life reset.  Think about who I am. Think about what I want. Think about what I don't want. Think about what parts of myself I've lost touch with. Think about what parts of myself that I needed to leave behind.  I have done a massive amount of thinking.

I think that my conclusions have boiled down to something simple. That the above is true. And that I can't be afraid to live as if the above is true. A journey is defined as an act of traveling from one place to another. Synonyms are an expedition, excursion, trek, jaunt, wandering or odyssey. How many of us actually think about our lives as an expedition? We don't. We are in a rush to get to a place. To achieve a status- relationship status, parental status, economic status, professional status. We are sold the fiction that once we achieve the status we get a golden key of happiness. The synonym for fiction is a lie. That is a lie.

We are told that both the journey and the destination are the means of happiness. But they are diametrically opposed so both can't be true.  I have achieved many status titles- Wife, Mother, Stylist, Teacher, Girlfriend, Director, Boss, Home Owner, Business Owner, Financial "stability". All of these roles in my life have been important but they do not, in and of themselves, make me happy. They are my fragments. They are the result of who I am because of what I have done. Where my journey has taken me.

I realized how easy it would be at this point of my life for my story to be written. I could easily slide into the epilogue of what is my story- with a great book already written. But that would mean that I have arrived at my destination.  That would mean that there are no more treks to be made and jaunts to be had. That would mean I'm ready to lay down and die. Obviously I'm not. 

That means that I have to, that I had to decide what I want my next segment to look like. I had to determine my expedition and prepare accordingly.  I think maybe that's why adults stagnate. The are afraid of the work of preparing for the next journey. After all a good expedition takes planning, maps, the right gear, the right knowledge and so on and so on.  As people age they are afraid to embrace the unknown. Arrogance really- to think that we have it so figured out. Or practicality- if I go back to school I have new student debt. If I move to a new land I have to sell my house and start a new mortgage. If I change anything it means I have to start over. However the term "to start over" indicates that you think you've finished and that goes back to the whole destination vs. journey mentality.

There are probably a type of person that wants the destination. That craves the stability and the predictable. That is content with working 5 days a week and gets excitement from yearly vacations. I hold no judgment against those type of people (unless they pretend to not want it when they really do- everyone should be honest with themselves). I simply am not one of them.

I am excited by what is next. And what is next after that. I am internally driven by the journey. All of this thinking has brought me back around to that. To the idea that my life will be that of an epic odyssey. An epic- used correctly. It is no surprise in retrospect that I was starting to feel smothered by my life. It had turned into a destination. 

So now what? Well- start preparing for the next adventure. Another synonym of journey is globe trotter. There is a lot of globe for me to cover.

I better get packing.

A

Life Reset

... and if my Son samples this I'm charging a royalty. Find your own inspiration. Millennials- ugh! ;)

I decided that I needed a life reset.  If you are old enough to remember when you needed to "reboot" your computer because it was crashing you'll remember that you needed to press 3 keys simultaneously and hold.  After a while your computer would unfreeze, shut down, then either re-start or you had to press the power button to turn it back on.  It was a manual override to an overload of information that had caused the computer to stop working.

I had a rather trying month.  Won't bore you with the details but I decided that like a frozen computer I needed to step back and - well at the time I couldn't think beyond breathing. It's funny how life can snowball on you with no encouragement on your part.  When you preform a computer reset you hit 3 keys.  A life reset dictates that you also hit those same 3 keys.

Control- When life starts to spiral it is a result of the fact that somewhere along the way you have lost your locus of control. And maybe you don't even realize it. The job you took starts demanding more and more of your soul. The relationship you are in decides they want a deeper investment. The toys that you bought can't play with themselves.  The friends that you have can't function without your input. These things start to crowd each other and eventually overlap. Their sides bumping and pushing and layering over each other until the part of you that is uniquely you loses her voice. Loses her space. She is no longer the driver but a passenger being billowed about by the whims of the demands that are asked of her. A life reset demands that you take back control of your time, your choices, your financial/physical/emotional investments and take stock.  You have to coax your voice back out from the layers and then wait patiently while she remembers how to speak.

Alt(ernative)- As you are taking back control you have to start looking at alternatives. There is a reason that your life spiraled as it did.  In order to avoid a repetitious cycle you need to be open to different paths.  A true life reset is not a life break or a vacation.  You don't walk away just to pick it all back up.  You make changes which take unconventional thinking and the ability to embrace alternatives. I think in life we may convince ourselves that our path is set in stone and it must look one way.  This is a fallacy. We have as much or as little choice as we determine.  Gifted with free will, especially in this country, the choice is ours for the choosing.  Catch is  you have to be willing to ante up and pay the cost. There is no magic bean. No life algorithm that equals success.  There are cliques that people like but only because it makes them feel safe. Cliques like "Beggars can't be choosers" or "Time heals all wounds" or "Everything happens for a reason." These things are simply not true.  In life no one story has to be your story. You get to ditch the script and take up pottery whenever you want.  You just have to be brave enough to leap into the abyss of alternatives.

Delete- I mean, right? How often in life do we purge our homes, our cars, our closets?  Why don't we purge our lives?  Maybe it's because we feel guilt for acknowledging that we have outgrown a relationship or career or hobby or status. We think that since our past has shaped us we owe it a shrine, even when it's draining us. Why? A life reset necessitates a deletion of things that no longer serve a purpose.  Ouch right?  But don't be hasty. That teddy bear that you have from 1992 does serve a purpose.  It reminds you of a lighter more innocent time.  You can't help but remember all of the tears that it's soaked up and you know in the back of your mind that if push comes to shove you'll pull it out to cry in again. Some things in our lives serve a covert purpose, one known only to ourselves, and that's ok.  I'm talking about the things that serve absolutely no purpose- or that require more time, energy, and effort than they are valued at.  The things that drain. They need to be deleted.  Why? Because they're using data and are bogging up the whole system. No one needs that. Hitting delete takes courage though. Deleted things do not go quietly into the night.  They beg and whine- try to induce guilt.  You have to carefully weigh what you want to delete and then keep that button pressed.

As with a computer reset a life reset only works if you hit all three buttons and hold on for a bit. Yet it does seem to work. I am a few weeks into my life reset and the clarity that I have stumbled across is astounding. The sleep alone has been worth it.  Do any of us realize how tired we all are? How intently under pressure? How much what we feel like we should do causes us to do what we don't want to do? Gotta step back man. Gotta fight back.

I can't say that I've found any answers, actually that's not true.  I have. A lot. I think that what I didn't realize was that in some cases the right answers don't match the questions.

So you have to throw the questions out.

A