It’s still the beginning of the year, a lot of people are either setting their goals or reviewing them. I asked someone this question recently after talking for awhile: What makes you happy?
You should be able to answer that.
With the beautiful holiday season upon us, I thought it would be a good time to encourage a thoughtful challenge.
With the gatherings that naturally happen around the holiday season & the exchange of gifts & meals shared there are plenty of times to be thoughtful of others. You’re continually being thoughtful of the best gifts to give the people on your lists, the tastiest meals for people you’re serving, & planning get-togethers with your close friends.
BUT, what about YOU!
I used to use blogging as a journal, I would write down everything I did. “I made eggs for breakfast, I’m so tired today, I’m happy it’s Tuesday”. You OG Missbassmaster readers may remember, throwback to Dubai days. But I haven’t blogged like that in a while. Today, I’m taking you back, because I’m moving – not cities, just apartments. I thought it was worthy of a full What’s Up with Me post because it falls in line with my allergy situation & I like keeping you updated on that journey.
I was in a meeting earlier this month & everyone was asked: What is one thing you learned this year? They asked a lot of hard questions like that… What’s a trait in yourself that you would not want to give someone else?
But, one thing I learned this year… Oddly enough, I feel like I’ve had a pretty comfortable year. The years before 2017 were chaotic & I’d probably respond to this question with answers like: patience, confidence, staying positive, ect. Moving to Dubai, adjusting there, working there, then moving back, my relationship with Wafiq, his immigration process, being broke, moving everywhere again, needing a job – every year contained variables. And in the moment, I often felt frustrated – like I was wasting time. I couldn’t wait to be “normal”. Get my life on track like everyone else.
Then, this year I finally had it! Normal & comfortable. At the very least, it was appearing to be on track.
But, throughout the year, and I think I’ve said this before on my blog, I found myself missing the variables & chaos. Even being broke!
For example, when you have no money, other parts of your life strengthen. Your creativity, your imagination, your hustle, your ideas, your friendships.
For example, when you have big life decisions ahead of you, the opportunity to impress yourself by being brave & making choices presents itself.
For example, when you’re not “on track”, you don’t have pressure or expectations. People are either disappointed & judgemental OR they’re believing in your journey & supportive. Relationships are defined.
There’s so much learning happening in the stages that you can’t wait to get through!
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Attention All: We have a new motto in our household. I’m putting the same test on you & your household as well. No more “I can’t wait for…”
I’ve never been someone who’s said “I can’t wait for…” or “I can’t wait when…” very often but I caught myself the other night. I kid you not, Wafiq & I said approx 4 times in a row an “I can’t wait for…” sentence. “I can’t wait for us to get the new computer screen”, “I can’t wait for the new speaker”, “I can’t wait for…”. We sat down on our badass couch in front of our huge ass TV in our treehouse home and started laughing. WTF. We have everything we’ve ever wanted right here in front of us. There were moments we couldn’t wait to have our own space, we couldn’t wait to get through the immigration process (& payments), we couldn’t wait to make money… and here we are with all of those things fully accomplished.
And now we’re acting like we need more?!?
Even when we barely had our own room to sleep in, we rarely said out loud how much we couldn’t wait to have our own place. I think we both knew if we started to focus on the things we didn’t have, we could end up in a dark, miserable tunnel of misery. So we rarely talked negatively.
It’s interesting once you start having “things” you start focusing on more things, for some reason. I think accidentally. I laughed out loud when I heard myself. We both did. And we said, no more! It’s freaking ridiculous what we’re doing. And instead, we focused on watching the season premiere of Survivor.
As you may have noticed, I write “be thoughtful” at the end of all my posts. When I started writing regularly I wanted to think of something to end with. Something short, that I genuinely wanted readers to leave w/every day. I thought about “be nice” or “be kind” because there’s nothing better than a nice person, but that’s not always the case. Sometimes, you shouldn’t be nice. You should be strong. You should be loud & badass & stick up for yourself, which might not be nice. I might actually suggest “be mean”.
I came up with “be thoughtful”. If you slow down & you’re thoughtful of the people you’re interacting with, you’ll know whether to be nice or to be mean. No one knows what’s going on w/the people they interact with every day and no one knows you.
I think this really amplified itself for me a year ago when I was dealing w/bad anxiety. I feel like I looked normal but was going through such a tough time in my head. I was trying to take things slow & gentle while I worked through my anxiety, and I felt fragile. But people didn’t know that.
One issue I had was driving anxiety. American’s driving is the single thing I HATE the most about America. It’s also one of the only times I use the word hate. Moms, dads, young people, old people, men, women, they all drive like a tasmanian devil. It’s crazy to me! We have these huge machines we’re plowing recklessly through traffic with and have no worry? And where are we always rushing to? Why are we rushing? We’re a product of our environment, American’s are glued to time. My advice is to say fuck it & leave work early, take your time to your kids soccer game, so you can show up alive.
I first forced myself into listening to a podcast when I was in the middle of a long, boring day at work and my anxiety started kicking. I was looking for something to distract my mind & I opened the podcast app on my phone. I landed on a random, gossipy, sans substance podcast… exactly what I needed. Stress free people talking about Brad Pit, the real housewives and sex noises. SOLD.
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