Wow! It’s been a long time. My fingers haven’t typed at this keyboard, sitting in my study, in weeks. I have no concrete reason or excuse except to admit I haven’t “felt” like it.
But
it is Sunday and Sundays are my second favorite day of the week and in celebration
of this fact and to put something down on paper before I bask in the very first
day it has felt like Springtime in Chicago, Jana offered up a stream of
consciousness (five minutes to type then
immediately press “publish”) prompt of:
Dealing (with anything and
anybody)
Oh
BOY, has this changed over the years.
I
remember being a young, gainfully employed adult, then young mother, and trying
to control absolutely everything I came in contact with and I mean EVERYTHING.
I thought if I did, I could determine (okay, force) a suitable outcome, which
definitely translated into the one I
wanted. It worked about 50% of the time (most likely with the same probability as accompanied by my extraordinary measures). The interesting thing about this approach is that I
was almost always 100% stressed out. With worry. With pending
disappointment. With exhaustion.
A
quick decision maker by nature, and very impulsive, I make mistakes continually
throughout any given day. I am the first person to admit I’m incredibly and undeniably imperfect. I feel a certain amount weight lifted being able to acknowledge
this.
But
thinking about my approach to dealing this morning and being a gazillion years older than that
young, naïve mother, I realize that control is almost one of the very last
things I desire or need. In fact, I almost hate the feeling I get from forcing
something. And who wants something you have to "force" anyway (and there is a difference between making something happen by working for it and using force to produce it especially against another's will, in my opinion).
I find
much more peace from sleeping on things (decisions and issues!!!), reducing my
expectations of others AND going easier on myself. I am the only person I can control.
Maybe not my scattered thoughts so much but how I react or act on them.
I
can’t control, nor would I want to, anyone else. Because I never want to make
anyone do anything that they don’t want in their own heart.
Be
YOU! Let me be ME! If we like each other, YEA!!!
It
sounds so hands off but it makes it easier for me to
close my eyes at night (who am I kidding; I never sleep anyway).
