Life on plan Z.

My life, like most people’s I think, has not gone as I planned. For a season I spent so much time obsessed with the fact that things hadn’t gone my way, I was blind to the amazing life I had been given. I was so dissatisfied with everything. The loving husband, amazing kids, and comfortable lifestyle just didn’t suit me. It wasn’t what I wanted. The truth was, I didn’t have any idea what I wanted, but I knew I was completely miserable, so certainly my life circumstances were to blame. 

I spent a lot of time considering hypothetical situations in which my happiness would come. More money, more stuff, more trips, a bigger career…I spent even more time misdirecting the anger I had on my family. I blamed my income, my marriage, and my motherhood for my unhappiness. What I didn’t understand was that I was the only problem, and there wasn’t a single change in circumstance that could have ended my misery.

Accepting my life as it is has been my only way out. Frankly it doesn’t really matter if my life is what I wanted, it is what I have. My reality is actually sort of beautiful. I am grateful I am able to see that now. When I was able to replace self pity with gratitude an entire new world opened up to me. I began to feel present in my life. I like today. I like now. Tomorrow doesn’t matter so much.

Being content with today is perhaps the most powerful thing I have learned in my journey. Life is today, right now. Some tomorrow’s never come, and the ones that do are often not how we pictured them. If you wait for something to make you happy, you’ll grow old in your discontented disconnect. 

Every single day is full of a million tiny things that can take us up and throw us down. If our peace is dependent on these ever changing circumstances we end up unstable, out of control, and never at peace.

I have hopes for the future certainly. I get excited about new opportunities. I feel disappointed about plenty. I feel the stress of our tight finances, I struggle to figure out how to fit in my own life, I get sad, mad, and happy. Those are feelings. Feelings pass. Peace remains. I might go up or down, but my baseline of contentment holds strong.

If you can’t be happy regardless of your circumstances, you just can’t be happy.  For me, happiness is being able to experience a full range of emotions, accept each day as it is, and maintain that sturdy base of gratitude and peace. On paper my life is “harder” than it has been in a long time, but somehow I am the most content I have ever been. That’s the power of gratitude. 

xoxo Julie