I've mentioned before I often write blogs in my head when I am trying to fall asleep. This is a recurrent one so it's time to try to put it into written words...without too much rambling I hope. (HAH, that will be a miracle).
It all started with thinking about the many things we do for the last time....almost always unknowingly. I'll give examples in a minute. It then turned into going back and thinking of all of those things and somehow turned into just plain reflecting about who I was and how I evolved morally, ethically, personality, etc. To realizing, after A LOT of reflection, that at the core I have been the person that I thought I was "trying" to be. Confused, yet? lol Hang in there...could be a while to get through all of this!
So even before my mom died I had had this conversation: how often do we do stuff for the very last time ever and have no idea when we are doing it that it will be THE LAST time? And if we had known, would we have paid a little more attention? savored the moment more? documented it differently? Some of my examples you may argue don't HAVE to be my last time. Like water skiing. But realistically...I just don't see it ever happening again. Sure, if it was that important to me, I would find a way, but I guess it just isn't, despite the fact I did really enjoy it when I did it. Same with snow skiing. I've even considered doing it again as recently as just a few years ago, but I come up with sooo many reasons NOT to, so do I really even want to? But there's even smaller things, it came up with my mom about not sitting on public toilet seats (squatting!). Nine months before she died, we met at a public park and went to a super gross public restroom. I commented this was a big argument for minimally staying in shape enough to never be forced to sit on a public seat and she said she was still able to squat, but I am sure there may come a day when I can't, despite trying to make sure otherwise! (yes the inner workings on my mind are super strange....hello, have you been reading this blog for the past few years??!?!?).
Since this conversation, I am trying to be more aware of stuff that may be the last time, but realistically there are just so many things that are unknown, some super unimportant and others that could turn out to be really important. Some completely out of our control. My recent rotator cuff injury(apparently just due to aging-I didn't actually DO anything to injure it) highlighted that, when shaving under my left arm became almost(I could do it with a little help from the hubby) impossible, with or without pain. (you gotta love my examples!) But to my surprise after over a year of gradual decline in range of motion and increase in pain and at first just doing at home internet researched PT, it did improve and I was even going to actually see a doctor...surprise! Going snorkeling in the Caribbean cured it...like 100%! At first I was just pain free and about 90% range of motion but after returning home I got ALL of my range back and hallelujah, I can shave both underarms again all by myself! (I know this knowledge makes your day! lol) As suspected I have digressed because this was not part of my blog plan! The point is I had no idea that I wouldn't be able to shave under my arm, certainly no idea at the level of gratitude I would have to regain my range of motion. It's been 6 weeks and I still just get moments of intense gratitude that I won't be living with that annoyance (pain wasn't terrible or constant) forever.
I wonder about things like will this be the last time I get in the ocean? We drive to the ports now...will I fly again? I mean, sure, most likely, because there are so many places I still want to see but...that doesn't mean I will get to. Sometimes we just don't know.
There are many people that I now realize I will probably never see again, some it saddens me, some make me shrug, eh whatever, I consider myself lucky that I don't feel relief about never having to see anyone ...well for the most part, there are definitely some I'd rather not have to see, but with my continued success in embracing stoicism, it really just is more of a whatever!
So, yeah...that's a big thing for me now. Looking at things through the lens of "Will this be the last time?" On planning our upcoming cruise, we want to see some ruins and instead of just picking between two choices, I really put thought into it. One was a 2 hour drive and the other only one hour. We don't like wasting so much time on a bus and were really leaning towards the closer one, despite the farther one being slightly better in a few ways (more to climb on, less tourists). Thanks to my new way of thinking I realized I (or hubby) may NOT be able to climb IF we even return to this port, heck I may not even be able to handle a 2 hour bus ride! Better to do what I can do while I can do it, than to assume both options with ever be an option again. It isn't living in the future, it's living in the now, and accepting that Memento Mori Memento Vivere way of thinking (remember we will die, remember to live). Or Nike..Just Do It. lol
So I think I beat that horse, you get the idea, I hope. I mean the list of things you've done for the last time is endless. I can't see myself ever playing badminton again, doing a handstand off of a diving board, roller skating! Again, if it was important, sure I could, but would I have paid a bit more attention that last time, had I known?
Next up was thinking about who, what event, when, why...did I decide to start this self discovery journey. I was quick to credit a whole bunch of ladies that I had met in California. And I will not downplay the role they had in kickstarting me back to who I was, they were pivotal! But I realized it was never really about becoming like them, it was finding my way back to being like them. I had been them. So when? I started reflecting and every time I thought I had found the moment, I realized I had to go back even farther. I made it all the way back to elementary school. I had always been the person I longed to be. I have always been a helper, a volunteer, a giver. That's not to say I hadn't got lost along the way, I did. But never as I lost as I thought. I won't retrace all the "good" I have done, it feels like patting myself on the back but the value I got from doing that reflection is so worth the time I put into it. I highly recommend it. I bet you too will find that the world has jaded you into buying into other people's perceptions of you or even causing you to stray from who you really are at heart. Because I still believe ALL of us (yes ALL of us) deep (some maybe too deep to ever access in this lifetime) are full of good energy. I am sure I have mentioned I am not one for organized religion, but one thing most religions talk about is God (by whatever name they use) is within all of us and that's what I mean when I say we are all good, we are all the same energy, created from one source, a good source, the source we will all return to one day. It is only this skin, this body, this ego that we inhabit that tarnishes, or buries that knowledge, clinging to beliefs completely contrary to why we were created...dammit...I am digressing again....that is an entire blog topic of my beliefs there.
So back to my reflection. I allowed myself to become cynical and in doing so started attracting negativity in the forms of people that would turn out to be influencing the parts of me that worked against that goodness. And despite those influences I still at my core couldn't fight the need to do good. I still gravitated towards my volunteer, helpful nature. And because of that was getting more and more of the "right" people into my life. I'm sure skeptics will call it coincidence, many don't believe in The Secret or of manifesting or the idea of attracting good into your life, but my circle kept getting bigger and bigger, the people I needed kept coming along and showing me the way, and not by anything other than being themselves, I could name them all, but I hope I have made it clear to them who they are. The very first one runs a fb group, she has a huge heart and led me to many of the others (shout out to my favorite fb inspirational meme poster I met through weeding! and to the woman who inspired me, with her huge commitment to the American Cancer Society to start volunteering for people charities instead of just animals!), either directly or indirectly. The most recent I stumbled upon because of a random article talking about a cat cafe she was going to be opening in Palm Springs. She had so many problems getting location, permits, etc and because of that her and her partner started some self help live video series to spread their stories about mental health struggles and that's how I found stoicism! These 4 women (and a few more I also met while in California) were instrumental in leading me back to my roots, of course until recently I didn't even consider it leading me back, I thought of them as inspiring me to be better. All of them are responsible for this self awareness journey I ended up on. All I had intended was to give a little more of myself but through the journey have learned I have been giving all along.
Because I am my own worst critic, I have downplayed my true nature, overexagerated how "bad" I was (due in part to the negative people who didn't want me to see my good and wanted to encourage my bad and they succeeded in making me feel like I did when being bullied in middle school, and instead of learning to love myself and be kind to myself, I was back to being that cynical "mean" version I had painted myself as.)The reflection back to childhood was useful in realizing how important self love is, it's ok to be proud of myself. I am the best version of myself when I love myself, I have more to give and through giving I gain. It's a wonderful cycle. I posted today on fb about light and without digressing too much: where there is light the dark can NOT survive. The definition of light is everything good, everything positive. If I am kind, the anger of others is dissolved, to respond with anger is to respond with darkness and their darkness will not go away if I bring darkness. I may not always have enough light to banish their darkness from them, but I can have enough light within to not allow their darkness to destroy the light I do have. I will fail. It is all part of life, part of the learning process. I am so much farther along than I have ever been at rejecting anger from people without responding.
At some point I may reflect on how I attracted the negative people, what attraction there was to them, why didn't I see the negativity and run? My mom believed they had a purpose but didn't share her ideas on what it may have been. I did write a "head" blog one night about some of these people. Temporary title was to be along the lines of "they think they live rent free in my head but in reality it's ROYALTY CHECK free", as in they aren't getting paid for the work I USE them for. They were invaluable in getting me to where I am, why would I want to give them up? They are as useful as role models through their "bad" examples as are the "good" influences. But that, too, is a LONG blog for another day...maybe. Or maybe I just take their lessons and move on. I feel like if I wrote it correctly it may help others to also use people that have hurt them, instead of focusing on the pain, find the purpose they may have served, the lessons to learn from them. As,I think it was Marcus Aurelius, says, one way to look at it is that to expect a lion to act other than a lion is a foolish expectation, it is their role to do what a lion will do, the same goes for some people, the agitators, the assholes all of them have a role to be angry at them or to hate them for behaving how they were created is a waste of energy, just instead be GLAD that this wasn't the role you were created for. (I did lots of paraphrasing there and skimming over his beliefs that we were all put here for purposes unknown to us and it takes a bit of reading to understand how their "bad nature" and purpose can seem contrary to all of us being "good"). I really like the easy way of just saying "Thank God (or whatever higher power) I don't have to live like THAT!I'm glad I am ME!" Do any of us want to be born to be someone else's "asshole"? Most of us would prefer to be inspirational but minimally not thought of as a dick.
The last few years spent reading and reading and reading have opened my eyes to so much of why I do what I do, why others may behave their ways (and why that doesn't need to concern me at all), why I need to keep reading. It is too easy to forget the lessons, even if I try to practice them every day. I need reinforcement, reminders, we all do. My journaling now consists of reflections about my day, what lessons I succeeded at, where I could do better, which ones I need to reread. And also daily gratitudes, I try to not repeat them, some days it's remarkably easy to list a bunch of gratitudes, other days are a real struggle, those days I spend more time reflecting. Reflecting on why it is so difficult this day to be grateful, when I KNOW I have countless things to be grateful for.
The goal needs to be that there isn't an attainable goal, we should always be working towards something, it truly is about the journey and the journey continues til the end. As the days approach quickly to getting fiberoptic internet (only 3!) the thing I look forward to most is taking more courses on Coursera. I never want to stop learning, about me, our brains, anything new!
My current focus is learning when to just keep my opinion to myself, the real work is to learn I don't need to have ANY opinion on most of the things I have opinions on. There's a balance, especially in the world we live in, some things require an opinion, because to sit idly by is to condone shit that needs to be called out, I won't be complicit through silence. More often than not though, my opinion is not required on most mundane matters, and this is where I shall start. It, as with most of this stuff, is so much easier said than done. Requires a lot of self awareness, sometimes reflection on where my opinion started, why I have the opinion and then whether it is even required.
And so I will go on reflecting and learning. And living, while dying. Memento Mori Memento Vivere.
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