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What do you do when nothing is wrong? When you are going through life, there are going to be times where there are obvious challenges ahead of you and your task is to think hard, work harder and do whatever it takes to get through it. From these challenges, we learn and grow and become generally better. And hell, more often than not we find a way to roll some good times into that process. But what do we do when nothing is, in fact, wrong?

You would think this scenario is a near nirvana, the utopia that we constantly search for throughout our lives. But just because nothing is wrong, does not mean that everything is right. Or anything for that matter. When things are wrong, we push ourselves. When things are right, we work to maintain that same level of satisfaction. But when things are neither, there is little reason to work for any reason; you have dug yourself a rut and you are safely trudging away in it.

The monotonous back and forth of daily life only deepens the lame state of being. And the only way out is to identify your place in that rut and strengthen yourself mentally and physically to remove yourself from it. Little is going to present itself as a means of forcing new behavior or reinforcing existing ones. 

Sometimes I find myself waiting for a sign. A sign that I am doing something right, or wrong, or anything. Because, frankly, this rut is killing me. I have worn away the ground beneath me in my frantic pacing. The walls grow as the ground sinks, closing me into the chamber I have put myself in; a physical representation of the feelings whizzing around my being. But I am not so sure the sign will show itself. 

So I must pick a direction and force myself to travel thusly. Even if it is not right, it should be wrong enough to force me to want to make it right once more.

(not) funny

So I came to a sad realization today. In the context of a larger story- which I may or may not get into at a later time- I was telling a joke about how I will follow in the footsteps of one fictional Sue Sylvester and marry myself (Sadly this has become a definite possibility with the way things have been going as of late). I went on to find myself actually saying, in an appropriately comedic voice, "...alienating people one at a time so there's no one to even invite to my marriage to myself." Funny, hysterical in fact. Until I stopped and realized that this may actually be true.

I have no plan. No place I want to be. No end destination in sight.

I simply travel from day to day, feeding the needs that need the most immediate attention. There is no prioritization based on future goals because how on earth am I supposed to figure out how to get where I am going when that final destination is barely more than a hope of being something real. I'm lost. After 2 years of "finding myself" I have found... nothing. I have no clue where I am going, where I should be going, or how fast I should be getting there.

I have been focusing on finding the things that make me happy- friends, family, activities, professional and academic endeavors, bettering myself... new things, old things, new friends, and the ones that have been in it through the long haul. And I thought I was getting somewhere, I really did. I thought I was finally shaking off the dark cloud that I had spent the prior four and a half years (or 24 depending how you want to look at it) spinning around myself was looking like a reality rather than the mere dream of normalcy it had been.

I get what I deserve. I push people away, keeping them beyond the walls of false security I've been building in lieu of actual confidence, making sure that the strong facade is enough to keep them out of the unattractively vulnerable interior. I don't deserve better, because I don't want it, not right now anyways, as I cannot see myself doing anything but just making it through the next day.

Is my immediate need gratification getting in the way of achieving the longer term goals, despite not knowing what they are? Am I going to continue to make the funny vision of a guest-less wedding to myself a sad reality?

...

and i promise you...

...I will learn from my mistakes.  We all make mistakes- it's a natural part of life.  Some are bigger than others, but every little one is the catalyst for growth.  No toddler just takes off running the first time they prop themselves up.  They stumble, they fall, they make mistakes- this is how they learn.  No one gets it right the first time (however if you know anyone who gets it right the first time every time I want them on my non-existent payroll).

So walking, basic motor skill- not easy to master, and I want to talk about trust.  Trust, one of the hardest human emotions to wrangle (feel free to picture a cowboy roping cows branded with different emoticons, as that's what I am doing).  Trust is hard because it falls at the crossroads between the head and the heart; it is the fine balance between intuition and logic, between feeling and ration.  And the worst part is that trust is a balance between what is earned and given.

Trust is so complicated because you have to depend not only on your internal struggle, but also someone else's.  People are complicated creatures, which is a great thing because it makes us interesting and this life worth living, but we all know "interesting" is just a euphemism for "I need to turn a negative into a positive without going as far to actually saying I like it..."  I believe it is true, what they all say... at least now I do:  first that you cannot trust others until you trust yourself and second that those who cannot trust, cannot be trusted.

I learned that as far as I have come, I still have much to learn when it comes to completely trusting myself (and admit that it's ok to let myself change my mind if I so need).  Trust truly does have to be mutual- one person cannot trust another that person does not trust them back.  And as much as those who aren't trusted can never earn said trust, if they are unwilling to trust others- take it as a sign, they are most likely not worthy of your trust.

In this life there are so few moments, and even fewer people worthy of sharing them with.  Each moment should each be treasured for what it gives to us and so should each person.  There is not enough time to be spending moments with people that have anything other than your best interest in mind.  I have made some huge mistakes in the past.  I have taken advantage of other people's trust and had others do the same to me.  Lessons learned?  We all make mistakes, we all control how said mistakes form our character, some characters are a lot better than others, and you need to carefully examine the character of those you let in your life- only the top should have the ability to earn your trust.

free form destiny

Someone asked me where I wanted to be (professionally) in 5 years today.  My honest response was, "that is a great question."  I have no freaking clue where I want to be five years from now- I barely know where I want to be tomorrow!  Thinking back five years ago, did I think I would be sitting here with my markting degree in a technology company doing B2B marketing? NOPE.  Did I think I would be living where I live, with who I live with?  NOPE.  Did I think that any piece of my life would be the way it is?  NOPE.  I think you get the point. 


But it's not like I didn't have a plan.  In fact, I had a very detailed, structured five year plan.  Everything from career, to continued education, to hobbies, to personal relationships was mapped out, color coded, I'm pretty sure I even had a couple of flow charts kicking around.  Seriously!  But somewhere along those five years, life happened.  And here I am floating around, my main concern being staying afloat, I haven't even begun to think about where I want to go let alone how I am going to get there.  This is a problem in my life.  Or maybe it's not.


After establishing that I have no freaking clue where I want to take my professional career, I got some great advice from two of my mentors- you know you have good mentors when two of them have the same advice.  "Think about what position you want to be in five years from now, figure out what skills that would take, and keep a list of both skills that you have that fall in line with the position requirements as well as those that you need to acquire before you have the full gamete.  Work on getting experiences that build the skills you are missing and there in lies your plan."


Brilliant advice if you don't know how to get where you are going: start at the end and work backwards.  However, it doesn't really help if you have no clue where you want to be in five years.  The point being, you can plan, execute, review, and repeat all day in order to meet your goals, but figuring out what goals to set has to come from somewhere.  I would refer back to my head vs. heart post.  They both have their appropriate functions: our brain can easily figure out how to get where we are going, but our heart has to select where that destination is.  And until it decides where you want to go, it's ok to float, just make sure you enjoy the ride.

one step forward, two steps back

Every day is a new one unlike the one before.  In theory we are some better versions of ourselves as we have thoughtfully contemplated out life choices of the previous day and have grown as a result.  Not always the case.  Most of the time I find myself having made strides in one are of life but feeling like a failure in another; so much so that it almost overshadows the successes that I had.  

Both successes and failures are important in life, and I know that.  But why can't the success outshine the failures?  Why does does forward progress come with something dragging you back?  I was thinking about this as I was listening to my mix CD from high school that I found while cleaning.  Positive = loving the songs that are now throwbacks, negative = between memories that the songs bring back plus the general sentiment of some of them really got to me.  I really wanted to just enjoy the awesome awkwardness that was this mix of songs (many of which were remixed) but I couldn't honestly enjoy it.  It made me think of how often I let the negative in the situations I encounter take over.

Most of the time, there is little reason to focus on what's dragging you down.  We get caught up in life and go with the motions, but as soon as we take a few steps back we see that we are simply caught in the tide and can easily get to the warm sand of the shore with just a little effort.  So rather than one step forward and two steps back, maybe it's really two steps back to realize that you are moving forward.

Every day will be better than the last because you are really an improved version of yourself- it's time to realize that we have the ability to make life situations better by controlling them rather than just floating along hoping that it all works out.  It's hard to conquer, but remember that you become better at it with each experience.  Take your steps back, take control, and live the life you want to.

head vs. heart

Why is it always an epic battle?  Being a well studied girl, I know that your brain is a well oiled machine, as you have literally spent the entirety of your life training it and testing it to make sure that it is ready to get you through difficult choices when they come up in life.  You get confident in your ability to think rationally and make decisions based on facts, backed up by previous experiences.  It's great, you're ready to go.


And then it happens- decision time.  Life throws some crazy thing at you and you have to make a decision.  Ok brain, your turn to shine- hit me with the right decision based on reason, logic, and facts!


And it does (it always does).  But for some reason, your heart decides it wants to chime in- and it wants to be heard.  Seemingly out of nowhere, your heart starts making decisions based on wishes and dreams and rainbows and butterfies or some other nonsense.  Your brain knows this is a terrible, terrible idea, but even though your heart was not trained properly for these types of decisions- it's a hell of a lot louder than your brain; it wins.


You get hurt (shocker).


Your brain never lets you or your heart forget that it's wrong.  And your heart vows to surrender all decision making efforts to the brain from this day forward because it doesn't want to hurt like this again.  You eat your pint of ice cream and/or entire tube of cookie dough, shed some tears, and move on- a stronger, wiser person you become.  Then comes decision time again.  Your brain delivers, your heart yells, your heart wins and the pain ensues.  


Does it hurt?  Yup, most of the time.  Do we learn?  Yeah... well, eventually.  Is it the best way to go through life?  Yes, because if we let our brain win all the time then we risk losing out on the time our heart is actually right; that time where the pleasure makes you forget you ever knew what pain was.  


The heart is very useful- impractical as the wizard says, but even a man made of the coldest metal wants to feel.  In the epic battle of head vs. heart- the head should be consulted, but the heart wins.