Life or So They Tell Me...

Well here we go. Since this is my first entry, I want to justify why I titled this blog “Life or So They Tell Me”. How many times has something happened to you and someone tells you, “Well that’s life”? Have you ever been in a situation and said “This can’t be my life”? Or do you ever feel like you are living your life based on how other people tell you to? We are so content to just accept our circumstances because people tell us that’s how life is but aren’t we the ones who are in control of our own destiny? When did we stop holding the reigns and charting our own life course?

For the last few years, I’ve felt incredibly disconnected to the life I’ve been living. Each day I get up and I do what I’m “supposed” to do. I have a full time job that I go to every day, I have groups of friends that I spend time with, I have projects and organizations that I’m involved in and I have a great family to enjoy. It sounds like a pretty full life and yes it is a nice one, however, I constantly feel like I am just going through the motions with no real sense of passion behind them.

When we’re young, we dream of what we will be when we grow up. I’m still not sure what I want to be but somewhere along the line, I stopped trying to figure that out. I thought by this stage of my life I would be in a completely different place and when that plan didn’t come true, instead of figuring out a new direction for my life, I was content to sit around and wait for my original plan to take hold. I thought maybe my timing was off but eventually things would just work themselves out. I had an excuse for everything and I hid behind them. It was easier to blame my situation on whatever setback I had suffered or someone else in my life but all that accomplished was a clever way to mask the fact that I was completely petrified that I had no contingency plan in case Life Plan A didn’t work out.

Now I know that there are some people out there that are more than happy with the life they are living and wouldn’t change it for anything in the world. To those people, I admit to you that I’m jealous. That is the type of situation I hope to one day be in and this blog is just documenting my journey on the road to that undisclosed destination where I will finally find the perfect fit my life has been missing. If I sound depressed, rethink that. I am energized. I am excited to take back the control of my future. I am ready to embrace all the heartache I have experienced, all the plans that have fallen short, and all the faded dreams that I have let go of and figure out what comes next. Just because Plan A didn’t pan out, doesn’t mean that an equally great life plan can’t take its place. It doesn’t have to be about missing out on those things I thought I would have by now but rather taking advantage of all the exciting things that I might not have been able to have if my original wants came true. I am ready to take the risks that are necessary to put the life back in my life, find unexpected adventures, and discover things I never knew I always wanted. So right now it’s my life according to what they tell me but this is my journey to make it life on my terms.

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” – E.E. Cummings