Contemplating Life’s Choices

Y’all the snow storm that came through here, and other parts of the country, was wild. It reminded me of what snow storms used to look like when I first moved to Utah with my family when I was 12. Yeah, that was a long time ago but back then it would be normal to have big snow storms over and over during winter time. Not so much anymore but the snow this past week has been fun. Today got pretty warm though so a lot of it is melting and making a muddy mess. *Sigh…*

Anyway, here we are for another weekly installment of 52 Weeks of Contemplation. Truly, I don’t know if there’s a day that goes by that I’m not questioning something around me. Part of it is having kids makes it easy. When they ask you what something is made of, why something is the way it is, or even simple things like why does that word start with a C instead of a K… Look y’all, you think you understand English pretty well until you realize some words have no rhyme or reason and can be pronounced multiple ways causing mass confusion for the kids… **Double Sigh… **

That being said, let’s get to our question for today…

What has happened in your life that changed how you view something or your opinion about something?

It could be something as simple as someone around you questioned something and you realized you should to. Or it could be something profound like when something life changing happens and your views on things immediately change.

One thing that happened that has significantly changed how I approach things was after I got Covid early in the pandemic. We’re talking pre-vaccine and back when long Covid wasn’t even a thought. My husband caught it first, then me, and of course because we had seen my family for the holidays my parents got sick too. My mom had the most mild case and my dad ended up in the hospital for a bit. Thankfully everyone recovered but I was sicker than I’d ever been and it took me forever to even feel a sliver of like I was back to normal. During that time I wasn’t doing my best and was definitely not my usual “hustle and grind” mode to get all the things done all the time. At some point I realized that even though I was doing a fraction of what I typically did no one noticed. I was doing fine at work, no one complained that I was suddenly a bad mom, and nothing changed if things weren’t “perfect”.

At that point I suddenly realized that if I could be “good enough” without killing myself in the process why was I doing all the extra stuff? From then on I realized the most important thing I can do is take care of myself and take care of the things that mean the most to me. For me, that’s my family. Of course my job is important because I need to pay my bills and take care of my kids but at the end of the day if I die my job will replace me but my family will be forever changed if I’m not around.

So, from then on I’ve prioritized giving myself the opportunity to ditch the perfectionist/people pleaser tendencies, I don’t feel obligated to work 50-60+ hours a week, I don’t say yes to every ask that comes my way because I know I want to keep time for myself and for my family and friends, and I don’t push myself to keep going when I know I just need to slow down and take a break.

The best thing about all of this… The world has never fallen apart or stopped functioning because I slowed down. It’s like the lie I believed that I had to always be pushing, hustling, shining, moming, and everything else to the max fell apart. It’s been completely life changing to be able to shift my perspective from never being enough to being content in being exactly who and what I am.

My recommendation is don’t wait for something like a major illness to sit down and assess what means the most to you and how you want to live your life. If you want to hustle and grind and that brings you true joy and fulfillment then do it. If rest and reflection is what you need make time for it. I know it can be hard to prioritize yourself but in the grand scheme of things if we don’t take care of ourselves we really don’t have anything meaningful left to share with others anyway.

So, what has changed your perspective or opinion on something? This timeframe in my life has gone on to change a number of views and perspectives I have so I’m grateful to have gone through things and for the fact I’ve managed to be relatively healthy after the fact too. I hope you take some time to think about this for yourself and feel free to drop your thoughts in the comments if you’d like to share.