Look outside to see what you can live for today

Recently, I wrote about making a dedicated effort to try new things to have a little fun, expand upon a skill, or to step out of your comfort zone. Whether you’re trying new things or indulging in old favorites, stopping to smell the roses and enjoy life is something we all advise, but many of us rarely put into practice.

I was chatting with a friend last week who is nearing 40, is single, and doesn’t have any children. And here I am, 26, and a year ago or so, I thought I would be getting married around now (a lot has changed since then!). As we recalled how we had both attempted to either set a path for ourselves in our careers and relationships or avoided one assuming things would work themselves out, I was reminded that life is short, and more often than not, we have to just go for what we want.

“Life is short” can seemingly be applied to anything: taking that long-dreamed-of trip to Italy, visiting an expensive restaurant in town, having fries when you know you should have the salad. And of course, I have to insert my disclaimer and fine print rules: this approach should be taken taken advantage of, but not to the extent of driving yourself to bankruptcy, making yourself unhealthy, or doing dangerous or illegal things. Like drinking or eating, it’s about moderation. It’s about spending vs. splurging in a manageable way and being opportunistic without being an idiot.

Personally, I struggle with jumping into certain scenarios when they sound thrilling but also are risky — usually financially or emotionally. Some of you might have the same issues. Do you save up for two years for the big trip and avoid all other pleasures or do you say screw it, you only live once? Do you tell someone how you feel and hope he/she feels the same or do you push it aside because you might get hurt? Do you eye the best restaurants lists with envy and read reviews with drool coming out of your mouth but refuse to spend $80-100 one one dinner when you could spend it on several in one week?

When I’m not sure what to do, I try to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Will traveling to my dream destinations now be expensive? Absolutely. But will they be worth it? Definitely. Will eating at the #1 place in DC be expensive? Yes. Will it outweigh having about 3-4 dinners and another couple happy hours with friends over the course of a month? Maybe, but probably not.

I’m not suggesting everyone run out and pull a Ferris Bueller and spend the day rendezvousing around town while avoiding your teacher/boss (Well, maybe I am. Hello, one of the best movies ever. And I love Chicago). But as Ferris says, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

So get out there and start living!

True Happiness

There are the people that are always happy, no matter what. They never seem to get angry, frustrated, sad, or down about anything. They may be standing in the middle of a hurricane, with no clothes on, and no one offering them help, and they’d still find something positive to say. It’s this guy, which Gallup says is the happiest guy in the country.

Then there are most of us, who have our happy days, sad days, and maybe some roller coaster days where we swing from highs and lows and in-betweens in the normal course of our lives as we journey through jobs, significant others, loves and losses — it’s all a part of life.

And then there the people who always seem to be unhappy, no matter what. They are called Debbie Downers, Party Poopers, sour-faces, etc. Sometimes they annoy us, but most of the time, at least for me, they make me sad, because I know that they’re the only ones standing in the way of their own happiness.

Sure, bad things happen to us. Bad week, bad few months, heck, even a bad year. But a bad life? For most of us, we’re talking about first-world problems. We have jobs, we have families, we have our health (with some sick days thrown in here and there). We have a roof over our head, maybe a pet to keep us company, a few friends to spend time with. Whether you’ve had bad luck for a little while, or even a long while, life is not hopeless, and life isn’t over. There are 98-year-olds out there who have lived full lives, more fulfilling lives than most of us will ever know, enduring more hardships than most of us will ever know, and they’re still looking forward to the next day, the next year…the rest of their life.

You’re never destined to be one way or another. You should never just “accept” the way things are if you’re not okay with it. And just when you think you’ve tried everything to get to what you want and need, think again. Try again. Do something different. It doesn’t mean be someone different. Just try something a different way, get another perspective.

When I look at people’s updates on Facebook or Twitter, read their blogs, or even talk with them on a daily basis, it kills me to hear constant negativity. Again, we’ve all had our moments. I’ve been pulled aside a couple of times to be told to knock off the negativity and to figure out how to deal with something and move on. If everything in your life has a negative aspect to it, get some help. And by help, it doesn’t have to mean therapy, but again, figure out how to get to what makes you happy — otherwise, there is no one to blame but yourself if you’re resigned to your status quo life.

Life can be so much better if you just let it be. I’ve written this before, but I’ll use it again, one of my favorite quotes: If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change something, change the way you think about it.

The choice is yours. Will you choose happiness?

First day of school: definitely a small step in a grand plan!

Today I had one of those come-to-insert-higher-power-of-choice moments. It started as a slight scolding from someone who is looking out for me in more than one way (which I deserved), twisted and turned into “I’ve been where you are” stories, and ended on a positive, action-oriented note.

“Help me help you” isn’t just a memorable line from Jerry Maguire — it’s something we have each heard at least once in our lives, maybe more often when we feel like we’re at a crossing in the woods, in the road, or whatever your path is in life. And in order to to help someone help you, you have to listen, and you have to be willing to take small steps to get to your grand plan – your “grander version of you.”

When you’re just not sure what to do next in your career, in a relationship, heck, in your week, it helps to think about things in two points of reference: 1) what is your big, long-term life goal for yourself; and 2) what are the daily steps you can do to get you to #1.

And most important to remember in all of this is to stop comparing yourself to everyone else. Easier said than done of course. This is probably one of my biggest challenges. I’m constantly wondering why I can’t be the one that wakes up at 6am and runs 5 miles and instead I beat myself up for working too long and therefore missing a workout. For several months leading into my breakup and after last year, I watched many friends and acquaintances get engaged and pitifully said to myself that it was supposed to be me. And when I see other people get promoted or move on to a bigger and better job, or take a great vacation around the world, I am envious that they made something happen for themselves while I seem stuck in a rut.

But it’s not about them. It’s about me. And my grand plan. And my small steps for getting there.

So what’s my grand plan, you might ask? Each day that I think about it, I become more sure and more in love with it: my grand version of me is to own a bookstore cafe where I am one of the cooks, but where I also hold writing workshops and classes for teens and young adults. Many dogs allowed. Sinatra, James Taylor, and Sam Cooke are always singing, and trails are near for running.

But how to get there, I ask myself? It probably won’t be in the next five years, the next 10, or maybe even the next 20. And in the meantime, there is lots of life to be lived, and part of that is taking the little steps here and there to get me to my end goal, such as:

• Signing up to be a mentor for a teen girl or teaching English as a second language as a local organization
• Traveling to countries on my wish list, one at a time (like my trip to Costa Rica coming in May)
• Training for more races my way — not anyone else’s way
• Making the right connections to help me grow in my career
• Taking another cooking class

Each day is chock full of decisions. And some days, we’re going to have frustrated moments, and we’ll go through unhappy times when we feel like the clock has stopped for us while everyone around us keeps moving. So when that happens, take a moment and visualize your grand plan, and then start the clock again and complete the next small step to get you that much closer to happiness.

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What's Next?

For much of my life, I’ve tried to live up to what I think other people want from me. I’ve tried to please them, make them love me more, like me more, want me more, and need me more.

And I mean everyone — my biological father, teachers, friends, boyfriends, crushes, my dad, my boss … the list goes on.

Much of my four years in DC have been focused on what was next for me as it related to my now ex-boyfriend. We were in love, we were best friends, and we were going to get married. It was as set as it could be, without a ring.

But when push came to shove on next steps, what we wanted for ourselves didn’t quite line up the way that it should for a couple planning to spend their lives together — and I took a big leap into a seemingly dark and deep unknown and ended the relationship.

Nearly eight months later, I’ve thought a lot about who I am and what is next for me. And the most magical and refreshing part of it is that I don’t have to know right now, and that’s okay.

For years I have planned out every step of my life, and coordinated how each person fits into it. But now, as much as I still love using them, I realize that lists and calendars and deadlines don’t make a life, and they don’t create happiness.

And now, I realize that one of the best things about living your life for you – and living it for the NOW — is accepting that not everything will fit together the way you imagine it, and certainly not every person.

That relationship with my ex is only one of the turning points in the last year that has led me to focusing on a happier me.

Some friendships have gone by the wayside, and others have strengthened. Changes at work have forced me to consider what’s important in a job, and my empty-nesting parents’ new beginning across the country have pushed me to dial into my goals and dreams more than ever.

My next leap could be to move, or to stay. It could be to fall in love again this year, or maybe a few years from now. It could be to return to school, start a new job, or start my own business.

My next leap is unknown, uncertain, unplanned, and undetermined.

But I do know that my next leap will be exactly right for me.

This week’s theme happened to be letting go. First it was one of those chain emails that gave all kinds of examples of why if someone walks away from you, that you should just let it go. That they’re not meant to be part of your story anymore. I had never thought about it that way before, and it was suddenly so enlightening. As I continued to read through the email, I found myself thinking again and again how obvious it all seemed, and how magical the idea of “letting go” is when it comes from someone else.

The second instance was in a conversation with someone new. We came across a commonality related to our families, and the dialogue turned into how our past and the baggage that often comes with it doesn’t always have to be that way…baggage that is. It’s all a matter of how you react to it and deal with it — and if you just let it go, it puts life in an entirely new perspective.

So as I think about the different things in my life, and broken relationships (of all kinds) that I have held on to or worried over or cried over, or gotten angry about, it’s suddenly so easy to just look at all of that and say, “That’s not meant to be a part of my story. They are not meant to be a part of my life.”

And let’s face it — it hasn’t been easy in many ways. But when things seem out of our control and we’re left wondering what happened or why me, we have to remember that it is in our control to let it go. It’s in our control to recognize that moments and people and memories and love and friendships and even family come and go for a reason, and that the only way we can live our best, healthy, happy lives is to let it all go.

They come together in weeks, months, or maybe years. They are represented by a blog entry here, a Facebook album there. They take up our dreams or nightmares for awhile, fill our therapy sessions and coworker coffee breaks until the topic becomes stale. And over time, these moments become what we think are distant memories, like faces of our loved ones that have passed and with each day we find it harder and harder to remember every detail of their face, their voice, their personality.

And then, the littlest thing makes it all so clear.

When it’s a good memory, it’s so very very good. It’s a ticket stub from a cherished family vacation, and suddenly you can remember walking across the rocks at Eagle’s Nest in Germany, the fog surrounding you as you look down on this beautiful land and wonder at the man who made this his hideout as he plotted mass murder. It’s a recipe written by hand by an uncle or grandfather, stained with andouille grease and and the ink fading because you’ve pinned it up in your kitchen time and again as you make a roux, the smell filling your soul and your apartment. It’s a college hoodie, the one you wore almost every night in your dorm as you studied late, watched episodes of House with your roommate, or walked across a campus cluttered with fallen leaves, admiring the red brick buildings.

And then there are the other memories. Maybe not bad, but they remind you of how something good changed course, perhaps when you weren’t ready for it. It’s a birthday card that proves first loves never go away. It’s a photo of two 17-year-olds on a bed after a high school basketball game, ready to stay up and giggle over boys all night. It’s an email from someone that left long ago that comes once a year, that’s like a knife to the heart — that you refuse to answer, knowing the pain at only reading it is better than what responding to it would bring. It’s seeing a tri-colored Corgi on the street and remembering that your little one is no longer at home to greet you.

It’s the littlest things that make it hardest to move on.

And in all this, it’s the little things that can also make it worthwhile to move on. It’s the text from your mom on a Saturday morning, just to say she loves you. It’s the flowers from your friend and her husband when you weren’t expecting it. It’s the lemon cake from your coworkers, and the note from your old boss. It’s seeing all your closest friends at the same dinner table, celebrating you, and celebrating life, love, good food, and friendship.

And then you realize, none of these are little things at all. They’re all very big, wonderful things — the things that people do to help you move on, in their own little way.

Sometimes, it never ends. Sometimes, just when you think it’s beginning, it’s ending. The hardest part though is knowing what you’re trying to get at. Is it the why that you’re still wondering about and wanting to resolve? Or is it the how now, the what now? For some of us, we need to know the why – we need to know why people acted or act the way they do, why things happened the way they did – why did we have to go through that? Others just want to put the past aside and deal with how it’s being addressed now and in the future.

But is there a middle ground? This weekend, it was an agreement between me and someone else (sorry – discretion is key here) that all questions are fair game, but we can each choose which ones we want to answer – so put on your boxing gloves, we said; half joking, half not.

When you’ve got baggage, issues that make up the very person that you are, and you want to figure it out, it’s a big maze of ifs, whens, whys, and hows. Because you don’t know where the exit is, and there are no directions, there are wrong turns along the way, and dead ends. But sometimes, like in Alice in Wonderland, there are friends and helpful allies along the way as well, keeping you on track, giving you clues, reminding you to be true to yourself. And at the end, whenever it ends, you can tell your story of a dream that was so real that it frightened you out of the slumber you’ve been in — and then you can really start living.

I’ve loved Sinatra since I was about 12 years old, and now more than ever, his songs have so much meaning in my life. In the last two months, I’ve ended a four-year relationship with someone whom I loved more than anyone, “broken up” with a friend that I’ve known for 13 years, and started to truly understand after nearly 26 years what it means to love or be loved “all the way.”

These are the in between years for me. Technically, I hope it’s only months, or maybe a year or two max. But it’s neither a good or lean year – it’s just that  – in between. New opportunities at work, new people in my life, old people moving out of my life, and my parents perhaps moving across the country and the state I called “home” will no longer be such. In the next year or two, I may  move again myself, I may change jobs,  and I may or may not fall in love again. There will be drama, there will be hugs, and kisses, and crying, and hopefully lots of laughter. There will be moments when I just want to hide by myself and tell everyone to go away and leave me alone, and there will be days where all I want is someone to wrap their arms around me and never let go. There will be people who call me too often, too little, or not at all. I will call people too often, too little, or not at all.

These are my in between years. Who knows where the road will lead us? Only a fool will say. But whatever it is, and wherever it is, I will do it all the way.

Someone says something harsh, tries to accuse you of something, or you can’t get your idea across. Someone keeps making stupid mistakes and not learning from them. Someone doesn’t appreciate you for what you do or who you are.

We have options.

We can yell back, snap back, explode and scream, vent to everyone around us, and become grouchy for the rest of the day. And sometimes, we need to do that. It’s the easy way out, the best feeling route in the moment, the reaction you feel the most oomph out of to get past it.

But we have options. A trusted friend or coworker tells you to “take the high road.” High road, shmigh road, you might say at first. Why me? Why do I have to be the one to ignore it, smile and move on?

Uphill, at that

And then you think about it. You think about how annoying it is that something someone else is doing or isn’t doing is eating away at you and

there’s nothing, absolutely nothing you can do about it anyway. You think about how it’s taking up your time, energy, and emotions, and maybe making you appear like the bad guy to everyone around you because it’s affecting you so much.

We have options. The high road is usually the least favored, the most scorned, the “but it’s not my fault” choice. And it’s in our nature to win, to be the right one, to say, “This is your fault.” But the high road, in the end, also makes us the winners, the right ones, the one that says, the only thing I can control is how I respond to this.

And eventually, you’ll come out on top, whether it seems that way at first or not. Taking the high road is a learning process, at the office, with your friends and family, and on an individual level. It may not always be easy, and it usually isn’t labeled as the “quick route” on the GPS. But along the way, you’ll see a lot more, learn a lot more, and feel a lot happier.

If you had to choose between a road with bumps, potholes, and cracks versus one that was smooth and scenic to get to your destination, wouldn’t you choose the latter?

One of the most empowering things in this whole process was realizing that there is so much out there for me. I can go anywhere, do anything that I want. I can move to Chicago or San Francisco or London, I can plan for myself and only myself, and I can, to an extent, be a single gal in the city.

As someone who has always feared being alone, being abandoned, being left or not loved anymore, it was also very interesting to be in a situation where I walked away despite feeling very strong emotions for someone. I am stronger because of it, and although I never would have guessed it before it happened, it was almost like a big a relief to say, yes, I can go through something like that and come out on the other side okay. (Note: with a little help from my parents – I can’t thank them enough for their support.)

Stepping out into the day, into the world, newly single, brings on such a mix of emotions. It’s exciting, it’s scary, it’s weird, it’s fun, it’s nerve-wracking, all at once. And I’m not talking about dating – that isn’t going to happen for awhile. But it’s the everyday stuff. When at one time you were going to be engaged by the end of the year and married the next, moving in with someone one month, and buying a new bed the next, and now you’re not…it’s just different. And just in one short month, I have traveled to Philly for the first time to volunteer, made new friends, signed up for another 10k, gotten a promotion, danced the night away again, and made travel plans.

For someone who usually plans down to the last detail and minute, this is new and different for me. I don’t know what will happen in my life in the next six months, or the next year…but strangely, refreshingly, that’s just fine with me.