Life is a Journey

I managed to cross something off my bucket list yesterday and I feel recharged.  Energized.  It may be the thing that kick starts the achievement of some other goals on the list.

It occurred to me how we sometimes just end up drifting, not really heading toward our destination.  Action requires, well, action.  It's like going on a cruise across an ocean - you leave one place to go to another, hopefully better, place while having some fun along the way.

Think of life like this - you board the cruise ship and to leave your everyday life behind for a while to go someplace exotic or special.  Your goals, dreams, hopes, wishes, bucket list are the exotic and someplace special you want to go.  It could be anything, whatever you want to achieve.  In order to get there, you have to leave where you have been.

So the cruise ship leaves port and it's such a thrill to start the journey!  All kinds of new sights, sounds, and people.  And then by day two, it all seems so normal and routine again.  But you don't lose sight of where you want to go.

Now there are three kinds of people on this journey.  There are those who do nothing but fear where they are going, withdraw from where they are currently, and think only of where they have been.  These folks dwell in the past and can only remember how good things were.

There are those who party like there is no tomorrow.  Literally.  These folks are focused so much on the present they will be burned out by the time they get to their destination.  They spend all their money gambling on the cruise ship or engaging in extremely risky excursions.  They are having a blast but may not physically, spiritually, or financially make it to where they want to go.

Finally, there are those who enjoy what the cruise ship has to offer - they eat good food in moderation, meet some new people, see some sights, maybe engage in some educational things along the way but they are focused on the destination.

The problem with cruises is things can happen along the way like going off course, or in extreme circumstances engine failure.  The ship goes adrift.  Sometimes you drift back to where you came from and it seems safer to just go back.  It's hard to tell if you have gotten closer to where you want to go or if it is easier to just go back.  And so you drift and float on the ocean.

After a while it doesn't seem so bad.  You have everything you want on the ship - food, shelter, entertainment, friends - so you settle into a pattern or habit.  You see the same people everyday.  Do the same activities.  See the same sights.  It gets comfortable and you begin to forget WHY you wanted to go to that special and exotic place.  It's great right where you are - why figure out how to get the ship moving again?

Meanwhile, those who dwell in the past want to turn the ship around and go back.  The partiers are quickly crashing and burning.  And those who want to move on feel stuck.  They aren't sure what to do - are the people who want to go back right?  Were things so much better back there?  Or are the thrill seekers right? Is the right way to live life like there is no tomorrow?

Then help arrives to fix the drifting ship.  Maybe a new captain who can read the maritime charts to get back on the right course.  Or maybe an engineer to fix the engines.  Some force intervenes and the ship starts to move forward.  And then you remember why it was important.  You remember what you wanted so very much and why you want to reach this new destination.  Why you planned the trip so very carefully in the first place.

I had been adrift for a while without really knowing it.  I had a destination in mind but was comfortable in the middle of the ocean on a ship going nowhere fast.  It's easy to settle into a routine and not "shake things up".  It's easy to accept how things are and not want to do the work to change course to head to that exotic and special place you so badly want to get to.

Are you drifting or heading toward your goals?

Where to begin?

Is not knowing where to begin some form of procrastination?  I know what I want to do, it's in my head, yet I'm struggling to actually BEGIN.

Part of it is I want to be sure I do things "right" though I doubt there is a right or wrong.  It's really just an excuse since I have a habit of jumping and doing stuff WITHOUT planning all the time.  So plotting and planning are really a sort of procrastination.

The other part is an unhealthy fear of failure.  I know it's there and I know it holds me back but yet I can't seem to get past it.  A fear that needs to be conquered.  I have lived inside a comfort zone for so long, it's hard to venture out and be "different".

And so, I must just begin.  Just do something, anything to move forward.  I know I'll thank myself for it tomorrow, next month and next year.

What inspires you?

Inspiration can come from many sources - our imagination, reading well written books, other people, or maybe Mother Nature.  Do you ever stop to think what inspires you?

I've been thinking about this lately and have realized there are two people in my life who have inspired me beyond words and they likely don't know it.  Scratch that, I know they don't know it.  If someone told you that you inspired them would it make you happy or a little freaked out?

These two people have never met and likely never will.  They are, on the surface, quite different yet spiritually very similar.

What do they have in common?  They are both living their dream, following their passion, and leading somewhat unconventional lives.  They are, as I like to say, coloring outside the lines.  As someone who spent an entire lifetime coloring INSIDE the lines I am inspired by their dedication, their self confidence, and their willingness to be different.

They have inspired me to find a way to do what makes me happy.  To find my passion and follow a dream.

A new goal for a new direction

So I've been feeling rather restless lately.  The deep down in your soul kind of restless.

Things have more or less settled down with work and in my personal life, but it's not boredom really.  It's more like a feeling that there is MORE out there.  More to get out of life or more to DO with my life.  Just hard to put into words.

I am tired of getting up every day and going to a job that is ok but not what I want to do every day.  Deep down, I have always felt this way about doing claims.  It can be mentally stimulating but it's stressful and, well, people can be ignorant.  There are times it is entertaining but many other times that it isn't. Not exactly how someone should spent upwards of 25 years of their life.  Yes, that long.

Then some things happened recently that got me all fired up.  Two, maybe three, separate people questioned me about why - WHY - I was "still single" or "not married".  One of the all time most hated questions to ask any single person.  Short of saying "what's it to you" there really is no answer that will satisfy most people.  And really, why should anyone have to justify anything some near stranger.

It got to me to thinking about things and before you knew it, I was thinking about writing a book.  Yes, a book.  There are far too many single people out there dealing with the "shame" being single.  As in "it's such a shame you are single" kind of shame.  And wouldn't you know?  Writing a book is on my bucket list so I am going to go for it.

That, my friends, is the new goal and new direction.  Not getting any younger and sometimes this girl needs a creative outlet.  What better way than to inspire other people who are single to accept it, embrace it, and love it!  At least I hope to be inspiring.

This is the beginning of my journey and I have to admit I have no idea what I'm doing.  I am equal parts thrilled, terrified and overwhelmed.  Hold on, this just might be fun!

Random Acts of Kindness Week

I'm not sure how or why this concept became such a "thing" for me.  Maybe I spent so much time being shy and introverted that I never thought how I treated people mattered.  That what I did really didn't matter to others.  This is, of course, entirely not true.

Maybe it took going above and beyond to do something "nice" just because to make it sink in. What we ALL do matters.  Every day.  How many times has your day been made a little brighter just because some stranger did something "nice".  Think about it.

I get weird comments about this concept.  People say "but I'm ALWAYS kind"!  Did I say they weren't?  That is NOT what this is about.  At all.  Otherwise, people would be "allowed" to be rude, mean, and inconsiderate all the time.  No, this means do something for someone random.  Something unexpected.  JUST BECAUSE.

My mom loved to bake.  It was her thing - and her calling card.  She rarely went anywhere social without taking some sort of baked from scratch goody with her.  Even when she was sick and on chemo, she was baking stuff for people.  During the few weeks she was with us, her friends wanted to have a get together and it made mom so upset that she didn't feel well enough to go without "taking something".  I assured her it was not expected or necessary.

She baked for co-workers.  She baked for the guy who worked on her car.  For her friends.  The mailman.   She was always baking something.  What she didn't didn't cost a lot of money, it was the investment of time and effort.  The unexpected gift.

I have sort of inherited this gene.  I bake for people at work when the mood strikes.  Or for friends just because or more likely for the people who see and love my dog every day at doggy daycare.  The joy it brings is priceless.

There is joy in the simple act of giving with expectation of getting anything in return.

Sunny Sunday...

It is an absolutely beautiful day here which is both good and, well, disappointing.

Not sure what happened to my foot last weekend, it is still bothering me though not as much. Maybe tendonitis?  Fascitis?  Or some other "itis"?  It's just frustrating and disappointing.

I have blogged on and off about running "over there" but sort of stopped when someone accused me of being "obsessed" about it.  Hardly true but I backed off anyway.  For me to be able to run more than a block and not want to pass out is truly an accomplishment - so I was proud of it.

I didn't start out wanting to run or thinking I could even do it.  It started with walking and then walking with a greater purpose - faster and with more intensity.  Then this urge to run just started to build up inside of me.  Hard to explain.  Then it became a challenge and a goal.  The challenge was to run more than walk, or run more than the last time.  It is truly a mental game and I learned discipline and to push myself when I thought I couldn't go any further.

The plan was to keep it up over the winter when it is so much nicer here to be outside.  If I could run 3.5 miles in the heat, imagine what could be accomplished in the cooler / less humid weather of winter!  But then my knee started to bother me a few weeks ago.  And now my foot.

Not sure what I'll do, have't figured it out yet.  I miss it, truly do.  It's almost a meditative thing.  No phones, no TV, nothing but an iPod and foot power.  The dog misses it, too.

I saw this pic on facebook and it struck a chord with me.  Perhaps running is no longer about weight loss and fitness but about getting rid of self doubt.

Speaking of ice....

The winter of 2009-2010 was mentioned in one of the comments on last night's post.  Yes, it WAS cold that winter here in Orlando.  Honest, it was.  The heat pump to the house stopped working a couple of times because it just could not keep up with the cold temps.  I know, anyone north of Georgia thinks Floridians are winter wimps, but even people from up north who came here on vacation complained.

One day, I took the dogs out for a walk and found icicles!  The neighbor had been running the lawn sprinklers so the pipes would not freeze and icicles formed on the hedge.  The pic below was taken in January 2010 in the early afternoon on a sunny day.  Yup, that means it was still below freezing by early afternoon.  I never, ever thought I would see this in Florida and hope to never see it here again.

It was a devastating winter for us - a lot of the native plants were killed along with fruit, ferns, and other commercial crops.  Did you know that an area just north of Orlando is like the fern capital?  As in the ferns used in floral bouquets.  There was a real crisis that year for florists who depended on the local fern growers for Valentine's Day arrangements.  

Keeping fingers crossed that this earlier than usual cool weather does not mean another winter like that one.