A Good Place

I have been off the radar for the past couple of weeks for a few reasons but am ready to get back on the horse of this awesome blog! I have made it a goal to travel outside of the United States at least once a year, so this year I went to Ireland and Scotland with a two of my very close friends. I definitely recommend going there, as there was more to do than I could have possibly ever imagined! I was thinking about how wonderful it was to have the opportunity to travel, how my work situation is working out and how nice the weather was yesterday on my drive home, and this next blog topic hit me. 

We often focus on what is going wrong in our lives, whether it is a job related thing, car trouble, relationship imperfections, etc. We do not often stop and just relish being in a good place in our lives; happy, content and blessed. I was thinking yesterday that it was just a really nice and good day. The weather was beautiful, I got to do cool things at work, I got to get nice new shoes and come home to a warm apartment with great company. I feel as if we work so hard to get to places like these, that we often let nice times like the one I had yesterday fall by the wayside. 

My parents often said that I had to work hard in school to get good grades and get a degree that would be not only interesting to me, but relevant in the grand scheme of things so that I could get a job that I liked, but also was needed and functional to someone else. I never really understood what I was working towards, just that I needed to do that in order to be a functioning member of society that can support myself and a family as an adult. While that is part of it, there is also the part that is hard to describe (but I’m going to try anyway). 

It isn’t so much that I have stopped working for the next step in life, because we never can be stagnant and be successful. It’s just that I have a lot more freedom to make many decisions about my path because of the work that I put in previous to now. Now that I have a good set of degrees, experience and job, I can make more strategic decisions to do things that I like AND that will be necessary for the future. And that those decisions don’t have to be made very quickly, because I’ve made it to a point of happiness as well as independence. There are certain goals that I have that the path to achieving them is rather ambiguous, but I can take my time and plan how I can get there, but still relish in the fact that I’ve made it to this point. I’m not sure if that makes sense, but I hope it does! 

The point of this entry is to say that yes you should work hard for the next steps in life, but also to live in the moment that you have created for yourself now. If that moment isn’t where you’d like to be, buckle down, do the work and get to that next great place. The past few years for me were not all roses and daisies, but I got the work done and am now in a good place. A good place to make the decisions to go where I’d like in the future. I challenge y’all to really think about where you are in life, enjoy where you are now, and make the decisions necessary to be even happier in the future.

Don't EVER tell me NO!

Have you ever been in a situation where someone has told you that you absolutely cannot do something? This is what happened to me recently, and I just, point-blank, find that type of assessment unacceptable. Dealing with an internal (yours) or an external (other people’s) lack of confidence is necessary in all areas of life. My experience, I think, can help me in the future when dealing with individuals who think that I can’t accomplish something. I’ll go back to one of the first experiences when I was told I couldn’t do something and draw some coping habits from that. 

When I was in 5^th grade, everyone that wanted to learn a musical instrument for 6^th grade band was mouthpiece tested to be sure that you could play the instrument you wanted. I REALLY wanted to play the flute. I mean, this was going to be my instrument, no if ands or buts. So I get tested and the instructor told me that “I don’t have the mouth to play the flute.” My reaction was WHAT?! I mean I got that we were being tested for a reason, but that I don’t have the mouth for it?! It sounded like a modeling audition to me! 

Well, I told my mom and was SO UPSET about it. I told her that I didn’t want to be in band anymore because that’s all I wanted to learn. And she said this: You can learn to play the flute; you may just have to work harder because of this mouth thing that your instructor highlighted. I was dumbfounded. I felt like the end of the world had come but my mom made it sound so simple. So my mom ordered a flute over the summer and I took some lessons beforehand to help me catch on. Well guess what? My instructor was wrong. I could play fine! The first day of class, my instructor saw that I was sitting in the flute section and I was pulled aside after class just to discuss my decision. She wasn’t upset or anything, she just wanted to make sure I knew what I was getting myself into. I showed her that I could play and had made the effort to learn ahead of time. From then on, this instructor and I had a very close relationship and she helped me learn and do as well as I possibly could. I even won medals at our State Solo and Ensemble competitions! Granted, I wasn’t the best flute player of all time; but I made it a point to be the best I could be. 

So from this experience, I learned how to deal with the dissenters of the world. Rather than get angry or upset about their lack of faith in you, PROVE to them that you can do it. There is that old adage that “you can do anything you set your mind to” and I firmly believe it. I understand that more work may be involved and that there may be a ceiling that you will probably hit, but that doesn’t mean to give up altogether at the beginning because of someone else’s assessment. My mom gave me that lesson rather early in life and I continue to use it even up to these past few weeks. 

So in light of this recent situation, I’m going for it. It helps that I already know that I can do it. I love challenges, so I challenge all of my readers to be sure to not let the “haters” get to you. I’ve actually found that the better you are at something, the more dissenters you will encounter. Rather paradoxical, huh? But leave them to “hatin’” and know that you can accomplish what you want and how you want. I leave you with this: HATERZ GONNA HATE!