Marching To The Beat Of A Different Drum

This week has been a good week for me. I am feeling better and stronger every day. And trust me when I say, that’s a massive improvement! I have received a few cards and lots of texts and messages checking in on me and I appreciate every one of them! Thank you all so much for your kindness! I still get tired pretty easily. But I am expecting that to fade away also. As far as eating goes . . . this week wasn’t as good as last week. And that isn’t only because I just finished a large lunch and free piece of pie from Home Plate for my birthday. I have had more of an appetite this week. I have eaten more. But again, I am chalking it up to the fact that my body is needing more to continue to get well. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it, anyway. Physical activity didn’t happen again this week. But I have already made myself an agreement that I will get out and walk some starting tomorrow. I don’t care if it’s around the block. I am shooting for the “more-than-I-did-yesterday” approach. One block will be just fine if that’s all I can manage. All you can do is all you can do, right? Right. Now, let’s get on with it . . . 

Today is my birthday! I am old according to some; young according to others; and even still more would say I am right where I am supposed to be: in the prime of life. I don’t know. There are mornings when I feel old; others when I feel young; and even still more days when I feel I am right where I am supposed to be: in the prime of life. What I can tell you for sure is this: I am getting to the age that I really don’t spend as much time worrying about what other people think of me as I used to. Anyone who knows me at all, knows I am a quirky, weird, even awkward person. I have a strange sense of humor and I am fairly sarcastic. No one knows this as much as my own family does. This week, something happened that reminded me just how strange I can be! As I mentioned last week, I have been doing a lot of painting. I have been using a method called acrylic paint pouring. I absolutely love it. But there are things I had to watch again and again to get the technique down enough to feel confident enough to try. Now, one of the people I have been watching (FOR HOURS) on YouTube is a lady named Jilly. I don’t know if that is how it’s spelled, but that’s what she has called herself. Anyway, Jilly is Australian. (Hopefully you said “Australian” in your head with an Australian accent as I always do! – I am weird, remember?) Since I have been watching and learning from Jilly, I have noticed myself doing something . . . If something good or bad happens, I will say out loud, “OH, NO!”, or, “Ooooooooohhhhh, I loooooooooove iiiitttttt!” with an Australian accent!  One day this week, Franklin, my youngest child, just happened to be walking by the room as I was painting at the same time I said out loud, “Ooooooohhhhhh, I looooooove iiiiitttttttt!”, with the emphasis on the “T” at the end of “it” and I heard him chuckle. He peeked his head and shoulders through the open door and asked me if what he had just heard was an Australian accent. I said that it was. With his signature “Franklin chuckle” he said it was pretty good. I apologized for my weirdness. He said it was just one of the many things he loves about his mom. What I am getting at is this . . . At that moment, even with Franklin hearing me, I was happy. I was carefree. I didn’t worry about whether or not someone may have heard me or thought I was weird or any of it!

At some point, and no, I can’t tell you when, I stopped caring about my happiness and started caring far too much about what others thought about me or wanted for me or expected of me. And then at some point, a point that is easier for me to recognize, I made the conscious decision that I was going to stop being so concerned about the opinions of others and what they thought of me or wanted for me or expected of me and pay more attention to what Lacy wanted and expected and thought. It has taken me a lot of time to arrive at that and actually start trying to focus on what is truly best for me. What is best for me? Well, I can tell you it may look different from what is best for you. But you know what? That is OKAY! We can be different. What is best for me includes some of the following things, in no particular order: Family, friends, God, Bible study, prayer, and time for myself. These last two years, I have learned so much about myself . . . and others. But what I have found to be most true is that I am better served paying attention to the things I mentioned above than by worrying what someone may be thinking about me or what their opinion may be about me. 

I used to have two signs above my desk when I worked at the newspaper. One of them said, “Lack of preparation on your part doesn’t constitute an emergency on mine.” The other said, “Stress is what happens when your mind says ‘no’ and your mouth says ‘yes’.” Truer words were never spoken than the words on that last sign. I found myself agreeing to take on way too much in some instances because there was no one else to do the things to which I was agreeing. I found myself sacrificing precious moments with my family because I said “yes” to something I really could have said “no” to. I had to learn the hard way that just because you are a “leader” of an organization or a “manager” at a place of employment or you have been placed in a position of responsibility with authority and it is now up to you to make sure things get done . . . NONE of those things require that you do them all yourself. I have been in organizations where people haven’t done things they were responsible for because they had taken all the work on themselves and neglected delegating tasks to other capable human beings. Heck, I have been that person before. It is stressful and no fun. I have also found myself working on projects to the point of sheer exhaustion just because I was afraid that someone may think less of me if I didn’t work myself to the point of exhaustion or that they would say that someone else worked harder than I did. I let the opinions of other people sometimes dictate WHY I was doing something instead of doing it because it was something that I actually loved. And the part that is even more crazy? Some of those projects and responsibilities I worked on to the point of exhaustion were things I really did love but by the time I was done with it, I never wanted to do it again. 

I don’t know why my mind took me to this topic today. I guess it is merely to say that your happiness is important. MY happiness is important. And when we give up happiness to cater to other people’s will and happiness in OUR lives, it is wrong. On all counts. I understand that we all have/had actual jobs with wages attached where we were sometimes asked to do something we didn’t enjoy. That is different. It’s a part of the JOB. When I worked at the dental clinic, we had a line in our employment manual that said management understood we weren’t going to LOVE every aspect of our job but that we were still expected to do them. I also told my employees all the time that I would never ask them to do something I wasn’t willing to do myself (or learn to do myself). But what I am saying is when our happiness is sacrificed in our own lives to appease the desires and wants and wishes of others, it is dangerous. Believe me. When other people’s opinions start to matter over our good sense, and our wishes, and our livelihood, it is not only counterproductive, it is flat out dangerous. And before you know it, you find yourself giving up this dream, or that dream all because you’ve already given up another dream before and it wasn’t such a big deal. What are we if we can’t dream? *FYI: That’s a rhetorical question and answers WILL vary and that is really okay* 

I am sure most of us have heard the saying, “He marches to the beat of a different drum.” I want to encourage you all today to find the drum beat in your life. Some of us will have drums that are louder than others. But I promise you, WE ALL HAVE a beat coming from a drumline somewhere deep within us. It’s unique. It’s permanent. And it’s YOURS. Find it. Please, find it. And when you hear it, it will be impossible NOT to hear it again. It will always reverberate and vibrate and move you somehow. When you do find it, march on. March to the beat of your own drum. You never know who you are going to inspire to find their beat. And, who knows? One day, you may even find yourself, covered in paint, talking to yourself in a room – with or without an Australian accent – when your youngest child points out just how unique and individual you truly are. And that process will remind you just how loved you are because of (or in spite of . . . not quite sure which) that uniqueness. 

#loveyourjourney #youreworthit #bettermewithNewYouCBD #Endo30 #itsuptoyou