Making Active Choices
I wrote the other day about how my priorities have been out of whack and how I struggle with investing all of my energy into work and things I feel like I should be doing. I’ve done enough soul-searching to know that making more active choices is going to be key to my happiness…but here’s where I sort of get stuck: how do I want to spend my time?
I was taking a walk with Aaron over the weekend and having a heart-to-heart about needing to spend my time in more meaningful ways. He asked me, “If money weren’t a concern and you could take three months off, what would you do?”. I had to deflect the question back to him because I couldn’t think of an answer. That makes me really, really sad.
He called me out on my dodging the question and although I didn’t fully answer him the second time, the experience raised a very important point for me. I’m so busy trying to do well at whatever gets put in front of me that I don’t create my own opportunities. And I don’t create those opportunities because I don’t set a vision. And I don’t set a vision because I don’t know what I want. I know what I’m interested in (this was the soul work I did when I moved to California) – but I get caught up in the not knowing what I want to do that I don’t actively do anything.
I’m wise enough to know that what I want is going to continue to change, and yet the planner in me gets paralyzed by the uncertainty. So I’ve been trying to figure out how I can break down this mindset that I have where I let my life feel like an assembly line, making passive choices based on what’s put in front of me because I don’t know exactly what I want to fill that space. Rather than appeasing my desire to plan by attempting to devise some grand approach with calculated risks and if/then statements, I think I need to simplify:
Try new things.
Whether that’s small (going to a new yoga studio) or bigger (signing up for a plant-based culinary program) or even silly/indulgent (opting for rich, full-fat coconut milk ice cream for dessert), I want to incorporate new experiences with the goal being to have more fun.
To quote one of my very favorite books, The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin:
The days are long, but the years are short.
How am I ever going to learn what I want to do if I never do anything differently?
