What will I do?

This is my mistake: Sharing personal predicaments with others (even if only a select few), then asking “What would you do?” in hopes of hearing something I’d feel comfortable trying for myself.  But the truth is I don’t need others to weigh in on my life situation.  I don’t need rescuing.  Sometimes all a person needs is reassurance that everything will work out for the best.  Life may not work out exactly as we want or expect it to, but we can still try to make the best of what we have and hope that we can continue working towards a better future.  Don’t we all deserve to be happy?  Don’t we all deserve peace of mind?

The trouble lies in one hoping for a circumstance to change rather than being the change in one’s circumstance.  We can all hope and wish and pray and pine for better, but unless we take action to make “better” happen, our reality cannot shift in that direction.

So I ask myself, what about my situation do I wish was different, and what do I plan to do to effect a change towards that direction?

I want to start by modifying small things, then progressing to more complex goals with time.

Punctuality – I’m late for work almost every day, but it’s not like I wake up late every morning.  It’s a strange phenomenon that I want to exert more control over.  While it hasn’t affected my position at the office yet, I still want to be more mindful of it.  I’ve tried to reign it in before, but I need to put in more effort.  Take this morning, for instance – I woke up at my usual 5am, snoozed the alarm until 5:30, but somehow made it to work at 8:48 when I should have arrived well before 8:30.  No more excuses.  I just need to be on time for work, period.  Why wait until next week?  “Punctual me” starts tomorrow.

Responding to text messages promptly – I can’t really explain this one either.  I’ll get a text, see it, and consciously decide to respond to it later, though unintentionally letting “later” drag into 3-4 days later.  Then by the time I actually respond I feel the need to preface it with some sort of apology when the truth is I just plain didn’t want to respond at the time I received the message.  Why keep putting that type of pressure on myself?

There.  I’m going to start with those 2 things.  They seem simple enough for me to tackle.  I will give myself a week, and monitor my progress along the way.  As I’m writing this, I feel freer already.  I’m realizing that there are a lot of little things in my daily life that cause me undue stress for absolutely no reason.  I could easily be at work on time, and I could easily respond to a text as soon as I read it, but what is stopping me?  Why do I put undue stress on myself by letting things drag out?  I don’t know the exact answer to that, but this weekend has taught me a lot about forgiving myself.

Sometimes the most difficult person to forgive is oneself.  What do I intend to do to free myself of undue stress?  I will let forgiveness start with me.