This post may resonate mostly with parents but I’m willing to bet it can transcend to those without children of their own.  It’s a simple refrain that’s been nagging me for many years.  It all seemed to begin in those formative years following high school graduation.  The sense that I need to get things done whether it be on a daily basis or that grand master plan we all have called “dreams”.

Best Laid Plans

What happened to that optimistic twenty-something that felt life so vibrantly?  We used to think we were just getting started, our whole lives ahead of us.  Somewhere in the mid-twenties many of us got into a grind of sorts…a starter job that meant we had to work in the “trenches” so to speak before we earned our stripes for that big break in our careers.  Or some of us were just starting to work off those graduate school loans, which meant more mundane tasks in our jobs until we got to that point of self-sufficiency.

The Shift

I can’t pinpoint just when it happened, but somehow my dreams/goals sort of faded out as the reality that my life was really going to change hit home.  For some that means the huge career move up.  Marriage knocks on your door in your thirties.  Or for others, such as in my personal case, children manifest through the most common method through the centuries and voila: your life is not just your own anymore.

Settling In

Once you adjust to this new ride that seems to be barreling toward our mid-lives, you recognize the need to remember why you left your family nest.  What is your spirit driven to do in this lifetime?  Besides the common human traits of coupling, nesting, pro-creating or simply just surviving…what do you hope to accomplish based on your talents and tendencies?  As a wife and mother, I know I’m not going to separate myself but that I can incorporate who I am at the core and what I’ve always aimed to do in life with my current status.

Re-adjust, Adapt and Thrive

You wake up on a Thursday morning in August, you have a mental list of things to do.  You get maybe a third of them done.  You mentally plan to do some of those odds and ends at night, after dinner, after everything basic is attended to…you end up hitting the leftover Ben and Jerry’s ice cream carton in the freezer as you watch some mindless show on TV before passing out.  We’ve all done it.

I’m not claiming to always be ambitious and disciplined enough to follow through on my whims/dreams/or desires.  However, it is possible to take “baby steps” and tell yourself to take a day or a night out of a week and devote it to all those “best laid plans”.  You will accomplish more and make the mark you’re meant to in this lifetime if you just try a little adjustment and adaptation to whatever your life circumstance is right now.  The cost of not trying at all would be to never thrive again as you promised yourself to when you were 22.

RVSB