opportunity and gift

what if the life you know as it exists today is different tomorrow? radically, radically different. a death of a parent, spouse or child, a serious illness, unemployment, or a life-altering financial loss. stop - don't go to the grief. i don't want this to be a shoulda-woulda-coulda looking back process. i don't want this to take you to a place where you have to experience the possibility of that grief or experience real grief again.

i want to think about what we would do differently now. today and going forward. how can we take advantage of the gift of a day? it's truly a gift only if we choose to look at it that way. when i begin to dissect my life there have been many missed opportunities, but this is where i stop myself so i don't live in the past. don't beat myself up. i want to learn from it, but not relive the pain. 

there are 4 major areas of my life i pay close attention to: family, personal growth, friends and career. looking back, there have been major heartbreaks, setbacks and successes within each area. i can happily say now that there are more successes in my day-to-day. and each day presents a new set of opportunities and challenges that force me to grow. 

wwcd: start looking at the major areas - in the next post i'll tell you about mine

i don't want to die with my pride...

i know how hard it is for me to swallow my pride and give in or up when i believe in my heart i'm right. i also know that being right means nothing in the big picture. what is it about being right that makes people end friendships, marriages, family ties without trying harder? being right can't be the sole motivation. being right can't be that important.

or can it?

somewhere in my life i learned the lesson that compromise was how the majority of disagreements were resolved. give and take. there really isn't much of a difference if you're all right or just some right. and i'd rather be a little right without jeopardizing a relationship, careers and the future than being all right alone or out of work.

it's also about making more than one attempt at resolution and reconciliation. how many times do you make the effort before you've swallowed your pride? keeping your pride in tact isn't the goal either, mending the wrong is. i think pride has a way of rebuilding itself over time, unfortunately, relationships don't without a little help.

wwcd: just writing "swallow it" sounds harsh and a bit of a mis-message, but that in fact is what i would do

how do you not take it all too seriously?

the more i know about what's going on in the world, the more i feel like i absorb whatever news story i've just read or watched. ask zach. he knows the moment my level of empathy rises and somehow knows just before the tears well up in my eyes. he'll give me a little look or extends a hand. he's a sensitive one too. 

i remember in my mid-20s that i became very anxious. i lived in ny then too and when i'd walk down the street, shopped in a store, or ate in a restaurant i felt overwhelmed. rather my senses felt overwhelmed. it was too loud, or too bright, or too hot, or too smelly...or there were just too many people. in a city like ny, there were always too many people. what i found the most upsetting was the number of homeless people there were on the streets. i wondered about them...worried about them...bought sandwiches and gave them money.

that intense anxiety 30 years later has all but disappeared, but what remains is the overly sensitive view of what's unjust. it doesn't need to be something as egregious as the oil spill, or as tragic as the war in iraq, it can be a news segment on wednesday's children about a child who needs a home and a parent to love them. it will pull me to that place where i question - where is the good in this world? it also makes me think about answering a call to action ... maybe adopting.

wwcd: i'd like to spread the empathy around a bit and see everyone take a little responsibility for what goes on in our world

it's just a feeling

i am not usually at a loss for an opinion. doesn't really matter the subject...paint colors, movies, vacation spots, and more importantly when it comes to what's right...well, at least to me. it makes me uncomfortable to write that, but the truth is - it seems quite apparent to me most of the time what's right and wrong. not that i always do the right thing - because i definitely don't. but i'm the first to know when i don't. 

it's a feeling i get...it's that feeling in your bones when something doesn't feel safe. it's the same feeling you tell your kids to pay attention to if they feel it. it's not something you can control. it's just there. going one step further, if you're just a bystander watching something not right ... act ... because it's the right thing to do. isn't it?

how do we make people more sensitive? care more? want life and things to be better...not just for them, but especially for others? maybe when seeing differences - the perspective on any given situation. maybe seeing those with less, or those with physical limitations, or just someone where your time and love can make a difference will make you feel different.

wwcd: if we pay more attention to that feeling, maybe we'll all feel more

peaking at the right time

i think it's easier to peak later and grow into it slowly, rather than peaking in middle or high school. what would there be to look forward to? we all remember the kids in school who epitomized cool. i remember vividly that i wasn't one of them. didn't really want to be one of them, but sort of enjoyed watching from afar and wondering what it would be like to be one of them. 

i've always been a late bloomer. i didn't grow to my full height or get my period until i was 16 - which led to a few doctor visits to make sure i would in fact grow. it also led to feelings of unrelenting insecurities. school didn't help since i spent many a parent-teacher conference hearing i wasn't working up to my potential. i also found high school to be a social land mine of missteps which led to more of the insecure feelings i was already having. 

i don't think i really started peaking until my mid 40s. work was definitely working. parenting was a complete pleasure and where i felt total comfort. ironically,n the place i felt the peaking occur the most was the place it didn't happen initially - school. it wasn't my school anymore, but zach's now. through all my volunteer work i felt as though i had finally lived up to my potential. i will say there was the feeling of a full circle in this happening where i would have liked it to happen all those decades ago. 

wwcd: we all peak - with a little patience