How many times have you viewed a film, a tv show, watched videos online or read a book about people who are living their dreams? The reality for most adults, unfortunately, is that our dreams ultimately remain being just that….dreams. Everyone has dreamed of something as a child, a teen or even as adults. Many folks pass on from this life with regret. Most, actually. We could list our dreams without end. Dreams of being a business owner with lots of money, being a pilot, a firefighter, an inventor, an author….we could continue on and on. For the majority of us, those dreams might as well have been living as a fairyland princess, or a super hero! The reality of today’s society and today’s abilities for ordinary people to be extraordinary is virtually non-existent. We end up living in the same rut day after day, wishing we had done much more with our time here on this planet.
Many dream,with full intentions on fulfilling those dreams, or at least giving them their best shot. However, they abandon those dreams because of real life obligations. The sad part is most folks live their entire life this way and end one day looking back while they are old and gray and saying….
”I thought I had time.”
So then what do we do? We end up telling stories of dreams and grandeur to the young people in our lives and telling them sometimes with force, to follow their dreams no matter what anyone says. Do they listen? NOPE!
Why so easily do we surrender our dreams? Why do we basically settle for a life that we never wanted to live or even a mundane existence that makes us realize that we are just getting by? Throughout my forty years of life on this planet and looking back at my life with that same clouded glass, I’ve realized a few things. Granted my view of the world and life is much diferent than most others. Maybe it’s the fact I’m a wife. Maybe it’s because I am a mother and strongly desire to have something else for my children. Maybe it’s because I don’t have a family support system (outside my husband and children) that most people have. Maybe it’s where I come from, how I grew up or my life experiences. Doubtless would i suggest it being one simple thing that explains everything about me personally. We are all complicated beings regardless of how monotonous that we all feel at times. There are times when we feel emboldened, thinking, “Ya know, I’ve done some pretty awesome things in my time.” However those days are few and far between for most folks. For me I realized that in today’s society we are programmed to be in a rut. My husband calls it “living in the hamster wheel”. If you consider the circumstances, you’ll discover it an accurate analogy. I’ve come to realize that it’s fear that truly keeps us from fulilling the lives we once longed to live.
At this moment, some of you are thinking, “Fear! Im not afraid of anything”, or “i don’t live my life in fear!”. But before you look away, give me a moment to explain. Fear is not always the textbook definition. When we hear the word fear we think of cowering in a corner or shaking uncontrollably. Fear isn’t always like this. Most of us live our lives engulfed in fear every minute of the day and haven’t the slightest clue. We have been conditioned to be as such. I’m not referring to the folks who struggle daily with phobias, who can’t leave the house or who are fearful of touching a surface in public, certain they will contract the black plaque. I’m talking about everyday “normal” people. The folks you see in the isles at the grocery store. Your coworkers. The folks driving down the road next to you in morning traffic. I am talking about everyone else in this world who neglect pursuing their dreams. This means you! Our society makes it absolutely clear that the “norm” is to be married, have 2.5 children, work a 9-5 job (or like most of us a 12-14 hour job), drive a semi new vehicle, live in a suburban culdesac, make your payments and smile while doing it. Citizens of other countries label this madness the “American Dream” . So my question to you is….Are you living the dream?
No need to await an answer. We all know the truth. The truth is no, you’re not living the dream. The majority of us are miserable and just getting by living paycheck to paycheck. This is where the fear begins. Society tells us in every way imaginable that anyone who differs from this “American Dream” is radical in some way. Either they are portrayed as having no education and being ignorant, or they are portrayed as being some kind of crazy person. Or my personal favorites: They are portrayed as some sort of fringe group with an indie documentary, or even a t.v. show, playing banjo music, making them out like some kind of side show spectacle. An exhibit at the zoo for us all to gaze at in wonder.
At this point most folks would add a disclaimer to be sure and get the message across that they do not express or agree with fringe, crazy folks in those documentary type groups. Ha! Why would folks do that? FEAR! Let me prove it to you with some examples.
So you go to work everyday for a certain amount of money. Granted you agreed upon this amount when you got the job but now living expenses have risen, you’re doing more work or flat-out you think you deserve more money. Do you go and tell the boss man “I want a raise.” Nope! Most don’t and the reason why is because you’re afraid that it might anger the boss man in some way shape or form. You are afraid that if you rock the boat you’ll be punished in some way. The fear engulfs our minds and we give umpteen reasons why we can’t ask for a raise. I might lose my overtime and I depend on my overtime. I might be scaled back on my regular hours and I can’t afford that. Or the fear puts us in the never-never corner where we tell ourselves “There is no point in asking because the boss man will never agree to give me a raise. So what’s the point in even asking?” Fear tells us to just stay quietly in our little rut and continue our “wash, rinse and repeat” lives. That’s called fear, folks.
So do you tell the boss that if you don’t get the raise then you’re giving your notice and you will find another job? For some of us that was the way we dealt with bosses when we were younger. That of course was before the mortgage, the spouse and the kids. Once again creeps that lovely prescribed fear. Back then we didn’t care if the boss didn’t agree to the raise. We would just simply say screw you and walk out, find another job and go on to another adventure. Not that way now, is it? I can hear you right now “I can’t do that. I might not find another job that pays as much. It’s to risky. Today’s economy isn’t the same as it was back then, jobs aren’t that available.” That is called fear!
Lets try another example of our fear engulfed lives that we are so accustomed to that we don’t even realize it anymore. How about with your families? And it doesn’t have to be the immediate family, it can be extended family and sometimes both. Someone in our family is behaving in a way that we would like to see change. Either their behavior, the way they talk, the way they treat you or someone else or even the decisions they make in their own lives. Do we say anything? The majority of us do not and here is why…… Fear!
What do we say to ourselves when we are having the prepared imaginary discussion with this said family member in our heads? “If I say that to them then they will just get angry and it will be a fight.” or “They won’t listen to me anyway so what’s the point?” Instead of speaking up for ourselves or those that we love and care about we just end up taking it. We endure it for family gatherings or our everyday lives and just deal with it. We complain to our friends, our spouses, our kids, on social media (of course only after blocking that family member from seeing the post) and go back for more. We avoid interactions with them as much as possible without seeming to be avoiding them and spend way to much time discussing the issue. Or worse we nag someone else in our family, whomever it may be, about how they need to say something about it when we don’t have the courage to do it ourselves. That is called fear.
The fear isn’t just in those big things in our lives either. It is in the small everyday decisions. You go to the grocery store and see something new on the isle and think….”Hmmm I bet this would be good. I should try this.” but quickly the fear jumps in and we shake it off because we are afraid to try something new. We are afraid we may not like it, the family may not like it or someone else in our lives might think some kinda way about us because we tried it. Fear! It is everywhere in our lives. From the music we listen to, the movies we watch, the neighborhoods we choose to live in, the cars we decide to buy, etc. We make decisions in our lives based on what someone else may think, how someone else may feel, how someone else may react or how someone else may affect our lives as a result of our decision. We fear the unknown. We fear taking risks. We fear adventure. Our society has made us afraid to be alive.
If you look back through time you will see different types of societies, different types of group think and different kinds of “normal”. All those time frames evolved to this point we are living now. You can look back to when it was fear of someone who was a different color than you, fear of someone who had a different faith than you, fear of someone who had a different political stance than you or fear of someone who had a different family dynamic than you. It all comes down to fears and it’s always the same fears. The responses we have to those fears is what changes.
Today’s society has finally figured out how to engulf those fears into our everyday lives so much so that we just no longer realize they are there. The fear has become the “norm”. Now it’s real easy at this point to get off on another branch of this subject and go on talking about those hot button issues and how today’s generations are different and what’s made this country turn to such crap….blah blah blah blah. Perhaps one day I will go down those roads with you, but not today. I want you to keep your eyes on this truth and that truth is the fear that keeps us from living our dreams. This is the point I want you to understand. It’s through understanding that particular point that all the rest will magically seem different. Almost like a shiny bright light is pointing them out.
I want you to first realize that sitting around wishing your life had turned out different doesn’t make you a bad person. It doesn’t mean that you aren’t happy to be a husband/wife or a mother/father. You can still love being those things and wish that you had fulfilled at least one dream in your life. I am simply talking about you as a person. Your identity as a person. Let me use myself as an example so that you can better see my point.
I am a wife and I love my husband dearly. I am a mother and I love my children dearly. I do not ever wish I hadn’t married my husband or had my children. I do however feel that I am something other than a wife and a mother. I stay at home with my children and home school my children. So I am home all the time. I am with my children all the time. Does it put a strain on me personally….OF COURSE!
When I try to talk to other people, or when you fill out forms for anything in life or answer questions, for example. when you take your child to the emergency room for stitches what do they ask? “Do you work outside the home?” I used to answer this question with a defeated no and go on about the other questions the same way. At the end of the questionaire I was always left feeling like I had just told the person asking the questions or the one reading the answers that I was essentially no one. I then started answering the question with a very determined “Yes I am a homeschooling mother.” In my mind I’m thinking “HA! Showed you!”. Over time I realized that I hadn’t showed anyone anything and the feelings of being no one continued.
The thoughts of all the things I had wanted to do or wanted to accomplish had remained dreams. I had done none of them, I mean NONE of them. The feeling of having no identity began to be a ball and chain attached to my leg. It always came up in my thoughts. Watching tv and seeing the prescribed fear induced by society would make me begin to argue with the tv. Sometimes in my head at first but over time it would be out loud.
I found myself becoming angry and disgusted at others who were trying to fulfill a dream. I was becoming bitter. However I didn’t stop there. I did become bitter and unhappy and full of just disgust with the idea of life being anything other than the “wash, rinse and repeat” mentality. I had given up on my life being anything other than what it was. I had settled in the rut that was my life and fell into the lull of the fear with “it will never change so why even bother anymore”.
That was my everyday. Through the laughing, smiling and playing with my children, it was in the back of my head. Through laughing, joking or loving my husband….it was in the back of my head. When I was in the company of others socially, or with family…it was in the back of my head. I was absolutely miserable! The biggest kicker for me was when I came to the realization that I just might be caught up in the dirty word of “depression” and absolutely freaked myself out!
Through all this time I am dealing with everyday normal problems. Stresses with money, bills, being a referee for the children, family drama, arguments with my husband, etc. Granted some days were worse than others but at that point there was never a day that went by that I didn’t feel like I was absolutely no body. I felt like I was dying.
Now please understand that when I say a nobody, I don’t mean wanting to be someone who’s famous or on tv, or even wealthy. I just mean a person in general. Just being a person! When you first met your spouse or when you date, how did/do you tell someone about you? You describe who you are, right? You give a list of accomplishments, hobbies, likes, dislikes etc. You describe who you are as a person.
For me I had nothing like that. My accomplishments were my four children and my marriage. There might be a loaf of made from scratch bread I baked that week but that’s it. As for my likes and dislikes, what was there to say? I don’t like veggies or droplets of pee on the toilet seat. I like music and when the kids all go to bed without hassle and sleep till at least 8 am. Hobbies…HA! What is that? What were my hobbies? Trying to keep the laundry from becoming Mt. Everest? Or perhaps trying to keep my overworked, overstressed hamster wheel of a husband from falling asleep before 9pm. Do you see my point yet? Anything sound familiar?
For my husband it was the same way. What were his likes? He likes music and a set of cold sheets on his sore and aching legs after standing on concrete all day. His dislikes, that was easy, my mother’s cooking, being nagged about falling asleep so early and having go to a job he hated everyday. His accomplishments, well those were just like mine, his marriage and his children. As for hobbies, well that’s just as funny as mine. What was there to list? That his hobbies were trying to get others at work to actually do their job so he wasn’t expected to do it for them or perhaps trying to stay awake? See the thought becomes comical doesn’t it?
You take a moment right now and just list them off. Be sure to do it as fast as you once did in life. You will quickly find that the list is almost impossible to make with the same vigor or even with real answers. And no you can’t list walks on the beach unless you actually do take walks on the beach on a regular basis. Our likes become a wish list of things we would like to do or of things we did only once. It’s the reality of that fear that I was telling you about before. It’s there and the more you look at it, the more you realize that Holy Cheese Crackers Batman…I am miserable!
So back to the example of this realization. I sat and looked at our lives and asked myself. What is it I am so afraid of? I’m not the type of person who gives two sheets in the wind to what someone thinks, so this isn’t something that just happens to wishy washy blown in the wind folks. You know the type of folks I am talking about. The people who follow the fads and trends blindly. The people who like something new everyday just because they saw it on the tv, heard it on the radio or read it in a meme on facebook. This crap happens to the hardest, the toughest, the funniest, the most creative, the most talented, the most likeable of people. Hell, this happens to all of us.
Some say that this is a midlife crisis. You know the kind they will refer to, where the 40 something man buys the bright red shiny new sports car and trades his wife in for a newer model. Or the women who goes out and gets plastic surgery and cheats on her husband with the pool boy. Once again we lean towards the examples given to us by society. The same ones that tell us that there is something wrong with us if we want something more. I am here to tell you that the problem lies with society and not with us!
I think by now you understand the fear or at least enough to follow from this point on. Still you are sketchy about the idea of Society wanting us this way but I will address that in time. Right now the next step is the question that many of you ask.
“Why is it important that I am a person? Just what does it matter?”
We have all asked ourselves this at some point. Our minds are programmed to question these thoughts of craziness. For us to doubt our own intuition, to doubt what the inward parts of our souls keep screaming. Asking the question “Who am I?” and “Why am I here?” have always been labeled as some abnormality in our society. You ask my generation this question and the response is “What are you a millennial?” If you were to ask it about our parents generation the response would be “What are you a hippie?” If we were to ask it about our grandparents generation the response would be “What are you one of those rock n roll lovers?” Do you see my point? Each generation had that one moment that would open their minds and have thoughts of doing something more with their lives that made them happy and gave them purpose rather than just continuing along with the herd, so to speak. It’s that moment of pondering that comes with adolescence, continuing into early adulthood, but stops shortly after. It’s such an important question to ask that every generation has a little quip about them to discredit the whole bunch from having any substance in their thoughts. The sense of purpose, happiness and leaving something behind is the feeling of being alive.
Asking yourself who you are isn’t about what others think or even to please anyone else. It’s the difference between, say, introducing yourself by giving your social security number or by giving them your name. Which are you at this moment? Are you a number in the herd or are you a person? A couple of days ago I was slapped in the face with a reminder of this very thing. My second child is autistic and gets overwhelmed easily or a more technical term over stimulated very easily. He was feeling that frustration of being overstimulated. With tears in his eyes, he began to tell me how he was having trouble finding the right words to express what he wanted to say. I of course told him with a loving smile on my face that it was ok and for him to take his time. He looked at me with eyes full of tears and said “I guess I’m just stupid and different.” It broke my heart. I mean what parents heart wouldn’t break at that moment? Without a blink in my eye or a skip in my words I proceeded to say these very words to him with intense seriousness.
“You are not stupid! Don’t you ever think of yourself that way!”
I then said “Son you are just different and that’s perfectly ok!”
I asked him “Wouldn’t the world be a boring place if everyone was the same? Wouldn’t it be so boring if everyone felt the same way, talked the same way, liked the same things or was all good at the same things?”
He smiled and with a giggle said “Yes mommie. It would be very boring wouldn’t it?”
See for him it’s the simple explanations that make sense to him. You learn a lot about each person being different when you have children but especially when you have children with learning disabilities. You realize very quickly as they grow that everyone has certain things about them that you can never change and each person requires different things to be happy, feel loved and important. I think we lose that when we get older. We forget those very things about ourselves.
At this point realizing that my second child has been starting to get in his head that it’s somehow wrong for him to be different and to be himself rocked my boat like I was in a hurricane. I already knew that getting out of this rat race and changing our cage was going to have to happen but seeing things like this after the realizations I’ve made lately, just puts a further pin in the wall for me.
Who we are as a person makes us part of this beautiful world and makes us unique. I mean really do you honestly think that everyone standing behind the counter at McDonalds making sure you get that #4 without onions really dreamed of doing that job? Of course not. Everyone can tell you at least one thing they would rather be doing right now at this very moment, than what they are doing at their job each day.
We are not supposed to be our jobs. Very few people in this world get to actually do what they love for a living. I mean let’s be real. I don’t mean those folks who tell you that they are a doctor because they care about people and want to help people. They work everyday as a doctor because it pays good! I mean come on folks let’s just be honest with each other here. Your parents never told you to go to college to do what you love. It was always go to college to earn a education so you can get a good job and make good money. It has never been about your passions and purpose. It’s always been about money!
When you introduce yourself to someone do you say “Hi! I am Joe Bob and I Am a surfer”? No you give your name and then the prescribed conversation which goes like :“And Joe Bob what do you do?” Your natural response is to always then give your job description. Or when you try to remind someone of someone else, you describe them with their job.
For example you say “Hey do you remember Darlene? Ya know the one that works up there at the convenience store?”
Just tell me how we got to the point that who we were was nothing other than what we did as a job? That what we are is nothing more than what we do to earn money? I mean because the reality is that 99% of people have the job they have because it was what paid the most money, what was available at the time or the one they have had since they were young. There is only a very small percentage of us who can say that they do what they love for a living. We tell ourselves, “Well that’s just the way it is” and go on about our business, day in and day out.
You don’t do the things you love and enjoy at work. You do them after the work is done right? Didn’t your mawmaw ever tell you “We do our work first and then you can play?”. Playing is having fun isn’t it? So just when was the last time you played?
There are folks who play as adults. What else do you think driving a motorcycle is or going camping, going to the beach, going to gamble or going to watch a sports game. These are the things that were once play for us. These are part of the things that make you who you are. The things that make you have joy, peace, satisfaction, purpose…. all those things that very few of us experience anymore and if we do they are always short lived.
Some folks deal with consequences of going to play just so they can manage to breathe in the morning. You know those guys who get chewed out by their wives every time they go fishing? Just like we know those men who complain at their wives because they were gone to long shopping. There’s your typical male vs female scenario but you get the point of the reference.
If you asked me right now “Who are you” or “What are you here for” I would want to tell you all the things I feel make me who I am. I am at home in the mountains and streams of Appalachia. I am a wildcrafter. I am a writer. I am a free thinker. I love adventure and still have dreams to fulfill! That is what I would tell you now but if you had asked me that weeks ago, months ago or years ago I would just tell you I’m a wife and a mother. And I would have stopped there and looked at you confused as to why you would even ask and at the fact that I wouldn’t know what else to tell you.
I sat at home and wondered to myself…is there anyone in this world who really knows who I am? Is there anyone in this world that I can be a full 100% of myself with? If I died today would anyone really be able to stand and tell someone what kind of person I was? That’s the kind of questions that come to your mind when you live that “wash, rinse and repeat” type of life. When you live in a hamster wheel. You begin to question every decision and choice that you made in the past to get you to where you are that very moment in life. You begin to wonder what the point is in your everyday life and just what difference in the world you have actually made. For me the question began to come very similar to the age old question:
If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?
Sooo…
Then if no one in this world really gets to know who I am as a person and I die, then did I really even exist at all?
Now don’t get lost in how far out that may sound to you. It is extremely relevant. Just think of when someone our age passes away. At that point how do we measure them up? It’s always based off what kind of person they were isn’t it? Along with us saying either how good of a person they were or how bad of a person they were we then add in things like “He/She had so much more they could’ve given this world.” “I sure wish I would have known them better” What we leave behind isn’t about what others want but what we want them to remember about us and how we impacted someone else so that we made a difference in life. We want to make a difference in some way to show that we fulfilled some kind of purpose for being here and being alive. The whole idea that we were not just a waste of space and oxygen.
People can say all they want that the concerns of leaving a memory is nothing more than you worrying about what others think of you down to the very end and that’s fine. However, I don’t see it as that. In my own mind the memory of someone else and the memories I had of them taught me lessons in life. Those lessons then helped me make decisions in life through some of the darkest times I’ve ever had. I tell those stories to my children or other people so that they understand the lesson I learned, perhaps then they learn the same lesson or a different lesson all together. The result doesn’t matter because to me I know that had it not been for that one particular experience in my life I would have made many decisions differently.
As a parent I sat here and thought ya know, what experiences do my children have to look back on to help them make those same types of decisions in life? What memories do they have that they can look back on and say “It makes sense now and I’m glad I went through that.” I sat here and realized that they didn’t have anything to look back on other than what my husband and I had created. It hit me like a ton of bricks that we couldn’t sit back and depend on other people in their lives to help them have those memories. I realized that if my life continued in the same path it was going, the only lessons they could learn or memories to look back on when it came to their mother was nothing other than something I cooked or some school lesson that I taught them.
Look, don’t get me wrong on this, ok? Teachers are important people and they mold people. Most of us had that one teacher who we remember out of them all because there was one thing they did that changed our lives or helped us in some way that we will never forget. That’s wonderful, but home school isn’t like that. It’s mom teaching you so there isn’t any nostalgia there. I was setting my children up to be just as miserable as I was. Something at that point had to change. It was no longer about my feeling of life or death for my husband and I, but now it felt that way for my children as well. I realized it wasn’t just my husband and I who were just shriveling up and dying in this hamster wheel. I refused to set my children up to feel this way when they become adults!
The only way that my life would change is if I did it myself. My husband and I had to be one on this and we both had to be willing to take a risk and make a HUGE change. We had made different plans and had different ideas as to how we could take ourselves and our children out of that hamster wheel. The fear still comes but you have to fight through it. The determination to have something more in life has to be so powerful that you’re willing to walk right through those thick curtains of fear that come. You see, everyday my husband wakes up to go to the same job, doing the same routine at work, talking to the same people at work, driving the same way home everyday, coming to the same house, sitting at the same table, eating the same types of meals each week and then laying down to relax planning to spend time with the kids. He always ends up falling asleep no matter how hard he tries because he’s exhausted from running in the hamster wheel. His one day off a week he’s usually so tired he can’t manage any enthusiasm to do anything else because he knows that tomorrow he will have to get up and do the same thing all over again. There’s no time to recoup living the “wash, rinse and repeat” life.
It’s no different for me either. Everyday I wake up, get the kids going for the day, referee their arguments, get chores done, do my best to teach them so they enjoy learning things and remember them, more chores, get ready for supper, get the kids settled for the evening, get the kids to bed and then try to force myself to fall asleep so I can do the same exact thing all over again the next day. In a nutshell that’s our lives. EVERYDAY!
Here’s where society comes in. Remember I told you I had you covered when it came to how you were still sketchy as to the part that society wants us to be this way? Here goes….hold on tight.
We get up and put on the clothes that society says we have to buy, to go to a job that society says we have to have, to earn money to pay for the car we bought to take us to work and the society approved stick built house we are supposed to live in that we basically only sleep in. When you live this way what are you doing other than just living to work?
However if you are folks like us then you are barely getting by on what you make which never gives you time to do anything remotely like living and any attempt you make at it is short lived. Do we get angry about it? Or should I say angry enough to do anything to change it? NOPE! What we do, however, is work more hours to have more money to pay our bills, our taxes and to pay for everything we need to go to work. News Flash folks….that is NOT living.
It’s just being a number. You are nothing more than just one wildebeest in a herd of millions. That is right. Just like one of those planet earth specials about the great migration. You are nothing more than one of those wildebeest just trying to make it to their next meal and their next drink of water. Living paycheck to paycheck is no different. You are going from week to week just trying to earn enough money to make it to the next paycheck. I don’t know about you but I refuse to be that wildebeest running blindly into those grasses while the wolves/lions wait for me to appear weak or down to that murky water to take a cautious sip to quench my thirst.
I am tired of living in the rat race of “the more of you there are then the least likely it will be that the wolves or crocodile gets me”. Sure some of the wildebeest will jump back when the croc pops out of the water or the wolf begins to chase them but they go right back. You don’t ever see any wildebeest turn and go back the way they came.
Society likes folks to fall in line and be just like everyone else. The first whiff of something different is automatically labeled and presented to you as defective. Everything has become about consumerism. Did you know that 95% of people in the United States spends most of their time indoors? Just let that sink in a bit. After you run your prescribed time in the hamster wheel you choose to stay in the cage.
Now I could go deeper and tell you how you are considered a slave or nothing more than a commodity. But if I did, would it matter? It’s not like you don’t already feel it inside your spirit. I am not saying that you need to run naked through the streets. I am also not telling you to become someone sitting out in a field eating grass and swaying with the wind. The truth however still stands that Society wants you to be a good little robot and follow the program. You are easily controlled and contained this way. It would compromise the whole system if we all just woke up one morning and said “Ya know what, I am done going to work everyday.”. Just think about that for a moment. What would happen to the system of our society if we all just “woke up” one morning. We can only change so many things at one time. By no means am I under some kind of unicorn dream that I can change Society and how it programs us to be. I honestly do not know if that is something that can ever truly happen. The only control I have is over my own actions and my own choices. I can only choose to share my experiences with you, let you know you aren’t alone and the rest is up to you. At the end of the day it all depends on how strong you are and if you are willing to walk through those curtains of fear.
Where do we sit now. After all I have told you, after the far out trips we’ve taken into deep thought and after the realizations, the logical thought is “What choice do I really have?” If you would have asked me a few weeks ago I would have quickly laughed and told you that we have no choice. I had all but give up on the idea of getting out of that wheel and especially that cage. We made many different attempts to follow the plans we had but every time we tried it just blew up in our face. Weeks ago I would have told you that it was just our destiny to shrivel up and die in this life.
However, a chance has came our way and we decided to jump in head first. For way to long we went from paycheck to paycheck. Struggling to pay the power bill that did nothing but rise no matter what we did or what we changed. Struggled to put groceries in the pantry for our children. Cringing and trying to rearrange paying bills when it was time to buy new shoes and clothes for the kids. See the rut is designed for you to stay in it. It is designed for you to continue to dig yourself into that rut through debt and consumerism so that before long the sides of those walls are to big to crawl over, much less to even notice anymore. This type of life becomes something that we get so accustomed to that we no longer even question it.
When this remains the norm, without question, how can we expect to evolve from the mindset of “it’s just the way it is”. I say to you take a chance! Take a risk! Take the time to do something you find joy in. Find some way to be an independent person outside of your real life obligations. Maybe for you it’s something as small as taking time to read your favorite book or something as drastic as pulling up roots and changing everything. It does not matter how big of a change you make but it does matter whether or not you make the choice to make a change.
I will be glad to take you along with us as we make our change. Perhaps you will discover that you are not defective for wanting someting more in life. Who knows, maybe you will realize that it’s not as big of a mountain to climb. Just maybe you will find inspiration to walk through those curtains yourself. Lets take a journey and enjoy the adventures!
Black Sheeps Reality 