The past couple of months, mainly since going to Africa, I have felt myself to be in a period of rebirth, regrowth, and renewal. There are several ways that this has manifested itself in my life, and I won't go into details of those things right now, but I will say that I have definitely been working on some major self-improvements in my life and can feel the work slowly starting to pay off.
Along with this theme, it popped into my head on my drive home from work today that there are a few things that I could benefit from working on for myself over the next few years (and, let's face it, the rest of my life). And so, I have developed a list of things that I would like to learn by the time that I turn 35 (which gives me a little over 5.5 years...)
1. Learn how to meditate for 1 hour without falling asleep
I have recently started the art of meditation, and it's really hard. Like, sometimes almost impossible. First of all, my mind knows that "quiet time" is a great time to present all of the thoughts that I hadn't had a chance to think of earlier in the day. It's quiet distracting. Second, my body is all about relaxation. I'm one of those people that gets into bed and is out cold within 60 seconds. So, even if I'm not actually feeling tired, often my mind will take it upon itself to curl up in a blanket for nap time when I am trying to meditate, no matter what time of the day it is. Although I'm still learning to be able to tell the difference between deep meditation and actual sleep, I have proof that sleep is sometimes my brain's intent, and that just needs to stop.
2. Learn how to pray without asking for anything
I will be the first to admit that I can be really selfish. I think about myself a lot, and it often gets in the way of doing good in the world. Prayer is not excluded from this list. Like most people, I pray when I need something and forget or neglect prayer when I don't. That doesn't even just mean an inattention to being thankful in my prayers. I am far more guilty than I would like to admit of saying, "I'll pray for you/your situation" and not actually following through. Quite obviously, it's not going to detriment my life, or even take a significant amount of time out of my day, to say a prayer for others and out of thankfulness, but yet, I suck at doing it.
3. Learn that worrying is futile
In case you haven't noticed, nothing good ever happens when we worry. I personally have never had the experience of worrying until I get sick and then whatever I'm worried about magically resolves itself once I reach that point of illness as if to say, "Ok, she's reached the brink. Let's just get it over with now". Never once. So, what has worrying gotten me? A few things that I can think of off the top of my head - TMJ and a toothache from grinding my teeth, headaches, angry moments, a loss of appetite, and a lot of wasted energy. You'd think that I would have learned by now, but no.
4. Learn not to over-think things
This goes right in line with #3. Only, I'm just a novice when it comes to worrying compared to the mastery skill that I have developed when it comes to over-thinking. Why is the sky blue? Well, if the light of the water is reflective, then it casts blue in the sky, but if it's really cloudy, then there may be less for the light to bounce off of, so maybe that's why sometimes it's not blue, and what about the birds, they don't turn blue, and rainbows, and butterflies, and unicorns, and aliens.... You get the point. There are lots of things that I like to blame this on (I'm a girl, I like to analyze things, there are always multiple sides to a story/situation, fear of the unknown, yadda yadda...), but the reality is that, regardless of where it's coming from, founded or unfounded, it's creating gray hairs on my head. I am not ok with that.
5. Learn to live in the moment
This is probably one of the hardest things. I like the past...I know what happens. There are no unknown surprise endings. And the future, well, that's scary. Who doesn't want to know the ending, especially when it's a plot twist? Right? No. The past can't be changed and the future is a product of the present, so why don't I just enjoy what today is giving me, good or bad? I like to think to myself, "I'd really like to come back here and see this again". The incessant forgetfulness to just BE in the moment is detrimental, and I won't stand for it anymore! (Ok, I say that now, but we'll see in 5 years where I'm at with that).
Yay! So, now I have a list of things to do (which is oh so fitting for the Type A person in me). But, the question is, how am I going to hold myself accountable for this? Well, dear friends, if you have never heard of an amazingly awesome website of www.futureme.org, then you are missing out. You can write yourself a letter to any date in the future, and it'll be delivered to your inbox on that date. How freaking awesome is that?! So, along with somehow posting these things up to visibly see wherever I am as a reminder, I am going to copy this entire entry into an email and forward it to my 35th birthday. Accountability, check. How shitty would I feel if I open it and am like, "oh, yeah, well, I didn't feel like bettering myself, so it didn't happen. Oh well." No, not gonna happen! I am going to take responsibility for myself, my actions, my mental health and wellbeing, and my sanity and just do it. Hurray for me!
And, by the way, I am super aware that I will likely not ever get to the point of achieving all of these things. But, striving for significant improvement is way better than continuing to settle in to where I am at now and was at a couple months ago, so I'll take the chance.
Challenge to you all in blogger land...come up with some self-improvements of your own and email them to yourself for accountability's sake. It can be a week, a month, a year, a decade in the future. I personally don't care when, but I do care that you do it. I care for your sake, because you're better than that. :)
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