Is the Grass Greener on the Other Side?

My sister and I are in two very different places in our lives. She is a young 22 year old with a 3 month old baby. She was married at 20 and began her family early. I on the other hand am 27, single, and have chosen to focus on my career. It is interesting that though the two of us find great pleasure in what we are doing in our lives, we both wish that we could be in the other's shoes. She longs to be independent, focus on a career, and live the "single carefree life"(which is an imaginary thing). I on the other hand would give whatever it took to be in her shoes. I've been down the career path. I've completed a great deal of schooling and I've had amazing accomplishment. I've loved it, but at the same time, I would trade all of it to have a family of my own. We both do realize that what we have is important, but each of us thinks the grass is greener on the other side of the hill.

Though our problems seem completely different, they are the same. We both struggle with what we think we want. She sees the stress of a crying baby. I see the stress of the demands of parents, district, law, and school officials. She sees me as being independent and doing whatever I want. I see her as someone who doesn't have worry about being lonely later on in life. I don't see her stresses for her baby girl, and she doesn't know the aching and sorrow for the children I long to have.

The fact is that each of us have an important role to play. Each of us have a time in life when we feel like we are missing or have missed out on something. The key to happiness is to realize that God has placed you in the situation you are currently in because you are the only person who can fulfill your mission at that time under the circumstances you have been placed in.

We don't stop to enjoy life enough. We rush and wait for the day for things to take place. We can't wait for the weekend or until the next hour. We wish and want so badly for the next experience to take place that we don't take time to be in the moment. There are so many experiences in life that we lose out on because we are waiting for the next. So the next time you feel anxious, frustrated, or longing to be in a different situation, stop and enjoy the moment.

Lest we Forget

I once heard that after you give birth, there is an endorphins released in your body to help you forget the pain so you will do it again. I have come to realize that the same type of endorphins is release into the body during the month of May for teachers. It helps them forget the trauma of teaching, but then the first day of school hits and every teacher wonders, why did sign up for another year?

The Choice to be Happy

Perhaps it's not a novel concept, but we are the ones who choose to be happy or miserable. We often equate our happiness with the situations around us. The more we choose to be happier the better our lives will be.
This week I started back to the grind of getting ready to teach. While it's exciting to come back, see the teachers and students again, and exciting to create new ways of doing things, it's also really frustrating. There are a million things to get in place and little time to do them all. There are new reading programs that only have half arrived. There are people who refuse to say one way or another about our budget so we don't know who we can hire. There are changes in schedules so one's plans are all negated, and there are new little surprises that are placed on the teachers shoulders that feel like set backs (this year we all got to clean our own rooms because the janitor had quit). To put it mildly, the stress level for everyone is way over the top.
This week (and the rest of the year) will be stressful. It always has been and it always will be. No doubt there will be some nights of crying on my part because if there weren't it wouldn't truly be teaching. It's hard. It frustrating, and so many things we know we are suppose to do contradict what we feel like what we need to do. We always want to do more, but we also need to have a personal life. We always wonder if we have pushed a kid far enough academically. We always wonder if had taught it another way if we could have made a little more of a difference. I work with some amazing teachers, and they all at some point wonder if they couldn't do just a little more.
With all this stress I've seen two types of reactions. There is the most common reaction which is to give into the negativity and there is the reaction that leads to it's not fair, it's hard, but we'll do our best. The fact is you can get frustrated, but it doesn't have to ruin your day. You can find happiness that is not dependent on your job. In fact, if you are truly happy and not just feeling a momentary pleasure, your happiness does not come at all from your job, spouse, money, house, car, etc. Your happiness is within you. It's the light that shines from the soul. It's the inner peace that everyone seeks for. It doesn't matter if someone shoots you down, or disrespects you. If you seek for that light within you, the world does not influence your happiness.
In his book, "Man's Search for Meaning," Viktor E. Frankl says that even during the holocaust he saw this principle. When everything had been taken away from these people, some would choose to let this light shine. There were some who on their deathbed would give whatever little scrap of food they had to someone else. Those people let their light shine. They had the inner happiness and peace. The happiness wasn't reliant on the place or the situation they were in. It was based on who they were inside.
Let's try not to mask our light. Don't let the disparity of the situation get us to forget the happiness inside. Constantly choose to let your light shine.

The Myth of Happily Ever After

Some where in our youth, we are taught that life will end happily ever after. We create in our minds the perfect plan to our lives, and we fully expect that those things will happen. Of course, we admit that "bad things can happen," but we never truly feel that those bad things will happen to us.

Then, somewhere between our blissful happy youth and our adulthood, we discover that life isn't a fairy tale at all. At times it can be hard, miserable, lonely, mundane, or disappointing. The determination to change the world through our job, turns out to be a hoax. The people we love tell us they don't love us anymore, and the plans have so intently come to rely on crumble before us. Our lives are shaken, and we feel lost. What has happened to the blissful happiness of youth?

But, when our lives crumble and fall completely apart there comes a change into our lives. Our souls are so deeply shaken that they have to start over again. The mind has to reconstruct reality, and through this life is enriched.

Life may not turn out the way we expect, but it will turn out better. Not that the next job will be significantly better, the next person we love won't end up hurting us as much, or the plans we make next won't crumble, but our lives will be more enriched and ready for the next step.

Types of Weird

I am often in conversation with someone and they will make a comment that some one is "weird" "unique" or "strange." While these are great words, they don't exactly give a clear imagine. I have determined that there are different types of weird. Here they are:

1. Nerdy Weird - This person displays his or her "uniqueness" by socially integrating sci-fi, fantasy novels, video games, and computer lingo into social settings. If you can have more than a 5 minute conversation about light sabers (and in fact have done so), you may be suffering from this. You may also be in trouble if you want to name parts of your home areas from Lord of the Rings, such as calling your bedroom the Hobbit Hole.

This area also extends to the computer and video games. If you have the final song on a video game memorized word for word, you need to reevaluate your priorities. If you can also relate to one of the characters in your video games, you have also gone too far. Let's also make this clear, you should not relate your thinking ability to amount of gigs on your computer.

I once held a conversation with a person who went on a blogging date. Yes, a blogging date. The people took their computers and instead of socially talking, they blogged to each other. That is going a little too far folks. The worst part was this person was actually proud of his "uniqueness." This person suffers from a severe case of "neirdy weird."

2. Branson Missouri Weird - This person is constantly musically happy. You know the type. Them and everyone in their family knows how to play 3 or more instruments, sing, and can do some other form of entertainment at the same time. The parents in these families have strategically planned from birth who will play what instrument and how it will form an overall routine.

I'm not dissing on musically talented families. In fact many families are musically talented, and I am in awe of their talents. This gets to be too much is when the family becomes freakishly controlling through music and dancing. These people live in a surreal bubble in which the outside world cannot penetrate their inner happiness. Or at least it looks like this on the outside. There is that subtle hint of insanity in glimmering in their eyes, and you know if you push the wrong button, you may release the wrath that has been bottled up for years.

3. Polygamist weird - This person may not be a polygamist, but they are oddly secretive about things. I can't really find the words to describe this one. They are dressed to the collar bone, wrist, and ankle. They have weird and unique ideas about birthing children, schooling children, vaccinations, and socially interacting with people outside of their family.

The fact is many people are weird, but the weirdest needs to be kept to a minimum in order for a person to be socially acceptable.

If you have any other ideas of "weirdness" let me know.

Something to Say

I was talking about blogs with my friends, and I came to the conclusion that I also needed to blog. I have things to say; things that need to be read by the general public. I have ideas that the general world needs to hear. For this reason, I have decided to open a blog.