“All my life I’ve been searching for something…” Foo Fighters
Ever since I was a little girl, I feel like I have been trying to figure out what I wanted to be when I grow up. What was MY THING? How can I figure it out???
Sometimes my dreams were BIG (and maybe unreasonable) but mostly I felt unclear and uncertain about what I should do. All too often I took the “logical”, most economic, people pleasing path of least resistance. In hindsight, I have made many poor choices, yet I believe there is no failure and we all can eventually find our way. I have learned from these non-ideal choices. Yet I keep struggling with what I should be doing now and what do I want to be working towards?
I am just recently (!) realizing that none of us ever “fully” grow up. We keep learning and growing and changing and this is how it should be. AND that we don’t have to choose “one” thing. There is no perfect “one” thing, one right path in life. Things will keep changing and we need to embrace where we are now and the phase we are in. The only constant is change.
I am naturally a planner and an over analyzer. I am a recovering perfectionist and pessimist. I have struggled with my own mental health at various times in my life. I am (overly?) driven to keep improving myself and continually read self-help books. I vacillate between wanting more and wanting less in my life.
I know I am extremely blessed to have all that I have been given – a close loving supportive family and amazing friends, having the privilege and freedom to live and work how I do. However, or maybe because of this, I feel like I am called for more.
I truly believe that we all are here for a reason. Unfortunately, thinking about our life “purpose, reason, or meaning” brings up a stress, heaviness, or burden that many of us don’t want to deal with. We honestly don’t know, and we don’t want to get it wrong. We feel stuck or overwhelmed with all that we are trying to do with our limited time and our lives.
I wanted to start a book and / or a podcast on living a meaningful life. To look at those who are doing it and learn from their stories, struggles, and successes. After taking a class with the Modern Elder Academy I decided to narrow the concept a little more to focus more specifically on the phase of life I am currently in and most of my friends are in, midlife. This is a time of great change and decisions. I wanted to do this project with my sister Tina, because I thought that would make it more fun and of a higher quality by having her provide another voice with a different perspective and bring her incredible strengths and talents to it also.
Tina and I are figuring this out as we go and hope that our new podcast, Messy Middlescence will help others and ourselves to learn, grow, and understand this unique phase of our life and how to live it better – more meaningfully and joyfully.
Life is a journey and I hope you will join us as we explore Messy Middlescence.
Here is a link to our first podcast episode of Messy Middlescence. It is my sister Tina interviewing me. 🙂
Recent Comments