2020 – here's to falling apart and intentionally putting ourselves back together
In the darkness, they shivered, trapped, looking around wide-eyed and blind. Golden moonlight dripping down, down, down, until there was nothing left but his silver, skeletal remains.
They would not survive this. And yet, they couldn’t leave him. Huddling together, grabbing onto one another’s arms, hugging close, they awaited the gates to open.
The pool of savory sorrow grew, leaking toward them. Closer.
Closer.
So you have a goal or a dream or a vision of a goal or there’s SOMETHING you’re wanting to do, become, or learn. But you’re inundated with mocking laughter, failure stories, and all the talk of how no one ever keeps their goals.
With all this fuss about goals being pointless – what’s a person to do? Not bother? Live a goalless existence where nothing we want to achieve is ever achieved? Stay the way we are forever in the hopes that life will someone change something for us?
Yeah, no.
That sounds terrible.
A lot of people don’t want to try to change their life or habits because of how much pain it will cause. But what we don’t realize is that NOT changing is painful as well.
Meaning our options are really to:
1 – hurt and never achieve anything we want, everything remains the same
or,
2 – hurt and make the changes in our lives that we desire.
It’s like the difference between being punched in the face and going to the dentist. Both are going to hurt, but one is bad for you and the other is healthy.
I’d suggest option two. And if that sounds good to you, here’s step one of how to start on that path.
STEP ONE
1A) What do you want?
No, really. It’s kinda the whole point. If you can’t name what it is that you want, your goal is not going to work. What’s your dream, your hope, your absolute deepest desire? What’s the one thing you want, right now? And it has to be something you have the power to change.
And FYI – We can’t control other people, can’t fix them or convince them of anything. Pick something that you want for yourself.
1B) Get precise.
What exactly do you want? You can’t have it if you can’t really put your thumb on it.
Pretend you have a genie that’s just asked you for one wish. He will give you 100% precisely what you ask for. So be careful how you word it. And make sure its something you really want in this specific way. If you ask for a new job, he might give you a job you’ll loathe.
1C) Why do you want it?
What’s your reason for wanting this? Are you doing it to impress someone, get someone to like or respect you, get revenge, or because its what someone else wants you to do?
NOT a good reason. Your goal will fail. Sometimes the whole revenge thing works but there’s only a slight chance of succeeding and you might not end up liking how you end up achieving your goal. Or how you’ve changed as a person at the end of it.
If you want to achieve a goal, make certain its something you really want and for a good reason. That doesn’t mean you have to have some mind blowing, television show worthy reason. We are all about silly, small, melodramatic, vulnerable, and embarrassing reasons. We’re human and that’s beautifully okay. But things will go easier if you know why you want your goal.
1D) Form your goal in a positive way.
Here’s the same goal said in two different ways.
One – I want to stop eating food that makes me feel gross and fat.
Two – I want to eat to be healthy and feel good.
Guess which one is going to be easier and funner to reach for?
1E) Plan for unexpected issues, mistakes, adaptation.
It’s going to happen. And there’s nothing wrong or bad about that. Things are going to happen that you couldn’t possibly plan for. You’re going to make mistakes. You’re going to find that your plan isn’t working and you need to change things in order to continue to reach for your goal in a healthy way. All of these things are good. They mean you’re working hard, putting in effort. Simply acknowledge that these things will happen and you can handle it, while treating yourself with kindness and respect, will help immensely.
1F) Believe.
In yourself. In your ability, your capability. You can do this. But if you don’t believe you can, you won’t. So take the chance. Make the leap, have faith, believe, trust.
If I give it claws, we’ll talk about the monster in us.
If I give it fangs, we won’t look away from what society tells us is too uncomfortable to linger on.
If I make it a world we don’t live in, we can look at the things we don’t want to talk about. Perhaps we can find the strength to do something about it the next time we see it.
If I make its eyes glow, we’ll think about the pain we want to hide. Maybe we will find a way to deal with it too.
If we have to suspend disbelief, we can poke at our childhood programming, our insecurities, our secrets.
Stories don’t judge us. They open us up to the possibility of change, connection, hope, and purpose. They give us new perspectives on things society labels for us (as if we don’t have brains or hearts to decide for ourselves). Stories give us the option to define our own life, our own self, and realize we’re not that different after all.
A black grandpa can read the same story as a white single mom. They can both recognize love when it’s being denied, the pain of a child dying, the need for someone in this world to see us for who we truly are.
Stories show us what’s broken and what’s beautiful. They give us a safe place to peel back the layers of this life without anyone mocking us or telling us we’re wrong or bad.
Stories give us heroes with fantastic abilities, somehow making it easier for us to love them when they mess up, hurt, and prove they aren’t perfect. It gives us a little more leeway to be imperfect ourselves.
There’s a certain magic to a story, whether there’s anything fantastical or whimsical in it or not.
If we read a story about a monster with a heart, it doesn’t hurt so much to look at the monster within ourselves. Only then can we do something about it.
If there is something you know you need to do – there is a way.
People might laugh, might mock, but the fact of the matter is this… If you know this is the right thing for you, this is your purpose, this is your path? Then you are 100% correct.
There might not be a clear step by step guide as to how to accomplish it. The odds may very well be against you. There might not be a single person on planet earth that believes in you.
That doesn’t matter.
What matters is that you do it. You work toward it, you keep picking yourself up after each mistake and road block and unseen complication – and you keep striving.
Keep going.
If it’s right, it’s right. That doesn’t mean easy or predictable. It means you’re meant for it. Go get it.
“The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra.”
You are good enough.
What have I learned?
…
I’ve never been one of those writers who stares at a blank page and doesn’t know what to write. Even if I didn’t have a plan, a plot, or so much as a character in mind to write about, I could go on and on, creating rampages and mysteries and banter until I fell asleep or someone waved a chocolate in front of my face.
Funny. I’ve been staring at this blank page for hours.
What have I learned this year?
Something I didn’t already know…
How do you take a year of life and ball it up and hand it to someone? Better yet, put it into words and splash them across paper?
Perhaps a few more hours shall pass before I know the answer to that one.
What have I learned? …
I’m worth it.
A new year is coming. You know this. I know this.
We seem obsessed with starting over, having a clean slate, making changes, and making new goals at the end and beginning of a year.
I believe we can do this any moment of any day or night. But I honor every single person in this life that decides to try any of this at any time. Including those of us who go about the same newness at new year’s.
So here we go.
I’d like to make some lists and ask myself some questions this new year. If you’re wanting to do the same thing but don’t know where to start – here’s what I’m going to do. Maybe it can give you some ideas or spark a similar desire in you.
I don’t want to make these lists and answer all of these questions in the next few days before the next year begins. Oh no. That’d be impossible and pointless.
I want to answer these questions and create these lists over the next year. By year 2021 I want to have answers. I want to learn something about myself. I want to live my own life, instead of spend my days and nights in a distraction haze, trying to survive.
I’ve been a little lifeless this year here on my blog. It’s not because I don’t have a desire to write or be expressive. The reasoning is a little more depressing. I’m afraid. I’m swamped by stress to the point I can’t think straight or cope with anything in a healthy way. I’ve spent this year falling apart.
I want more. I want 2020 to be a year of rebuilding. Only, I get to choose the building blocks and I get to choose what I’m creating.
What are some questions and lists you want to make this upcoming year? What do you want?
