We get stuck. We get stuck in our routines, we get stuck in our outlooks, and we get stuck in our perceptions.
I get stuck. I sometimes look around me at my everyday life and feel the consistency of the routine and long for a shakeup. I long for travel, adventure, fleet-footedness and free-spiritedness. But this is not always possible and is not always to be. Maybe you have a new baby, debt to pay, a job that requires time and responsibility. And your routine is as spicy as, well, as you feel right now.
Coming out of a phase of life and child-rearing where I had an infant and a toddler in tow and into the phase of two toddlers, I’m noticing a restlessness. Maybe it comes from my children being older and more independant. Maybe it’s just the delay of Spring. But I’m gonna be honest, feelin a little sorry for myself. It’s the desire for the new and different that others seem to be doing. It’s a desire for something new to sink my teeth into (see prior posts for more on my unsettledness). So I’m a little discontent. The hamster needs new cage shavings.
I had a thought tonight in the middle of an envious sigh. I can speak proactively into my discontent. When life gives me lemons of discontent, I need to change the lemonade recipe.
With the new stage in my life (and I imagine, the new stages in yours), the same old isn’t the same old anymore. A wise person, my husband, heard my lamenting and said, “we just need to change it”. When you’re in a new stage, the old rules just don’t apply anymore.
Out of the baby stage? Take on something new as you begin to emerge out of the fog of new babyness. If you have an empty nest, what better time to tackle something new? Retired? Look around for how you can shake things up.
So much depends on our perspective, which is colored by old ideas. “But I can’t do…” Really? Are you sure? Maybe you can.
It’s a new idea for me. The idea of a life shift that is dictated by situation and directed by my willingness to enter a new phase in how I function and perceive myself and the world. I wonder where my courage will take me.