Inspiration

The Original Inspiration: The Posterity Project in My Mind


I originally took on this challenge because I got a crazy idea in my head: what if I got a letter in the mail on my 29th birthday.  This letter was a notification that historians have developed a way to "record" an entire person (their thoughts, their personality, their body, etc) and decided that each person should be recorded in a posterity project.  So each person gets ONE day to have themselves recorded.  And I was notified that my day--the day I would be recorded, the day I would be who I would be for all eternity--was my 30th Birthday.  My descendants could look back and say "That was my great-great-great grandmother", historians and statisticians would refer to me as an example of my generation, women would look back and say "That's what it was like to be a 30 year old woman in 2011", politicians would look at me and say "We should make policies to reflect that person", friends would say "This is what I loved about this person", and enemies would say "This is what I hated", and I will be comfortable knowing that who I reflected myself as that day was what I wanted.

I know it's kind of a far out thought.  I think it struck me because of the age we live in.  Who knows when you will be stuck in the wrong place and the wrong time (or right place at the right time, depending on how you look at it), and you get recorded on someone's iPhone camera and uploaded to YouTube and for whatever reason it goes viral.  And that's it.  Your legacy.  I know there's more to life than that, but I guess I just get the heeby-jeebies when I think about it.  What if I'm twenty pounds overweight?  What if I'm stuck in a dead-end awful job and people look at me and think, "I never want to be her!"?  What if I'm particularly hateful at that moment?  Creepy thought, but--what can I say--these are the thoughts I have.  And that thought is what originally inspired this project.  For better or worse.

Inspiration from Books: The Wheel of Life

With that in mind, I took a look at the book Five I mentioned yesterday.  True, this book can be a little cheesy and over the top at times, but there are some good questions and ideas that deserve attention.  The one I decided to focus on last night is called The Wheel of Life.
The Wheel gives 12 areas of life to think about (some of them I think are a little random, but I went with it), the idea being that each area is a spoke of a wheel, and if one is not stable, the wheel will not turn properly (the flat tire of life maybe?).  A little cliche, but I still thought worthwhile enough for some deep thought.  After all, this is a rather holistic way of looking at improving one's life, which is what I'm after.  The 12 areas are:
Spiritual
Relationships
Romance
Travel
Adventure
Charitable
Recreation
Education
Financial
Health
Career
Family

Once I got over the glaring grammatical errors in parallel structure (okay--I never got over them), I put a great deal of thought into each.  And it yielded some interesting thoughts:

1) One reason for getting started on this project was because I was looking ahead at turning 30 in a year, and decided I simply was not where I wanted to be--mostly physically (wanting to be in better shape, eating better, etc etc) and with my career.   But in looking hard at all areas in my life, I realized that those are small potatoes in the scheme of things.  I mean, a LOT of my life is going really well--I have a fantastic marriage, a wonderful home life and family, and I've rid myself of most major negative stressers in life--but, instead of rejoicing in this, I drown myself in thoughts of what is NOT working perfectly.  Yes, I want to lose weight, I want to be healthier, I want to be on a meaningful career track, but that is not all life is about.  And if I keep remembering that, and keep remembering what IS working, I feel like I can have patience for making those long-term positive changes.

2) The Wheel of Life is a poor analogy for me, but at least thinking about it made me realize why--everything about my life is sensitively interconnected.   It's more like the body--if you have a rash, it could be because of something seemingly unrelated like what you ate for dinner.  As it is with the relationship between any two items on this list.  I mean, how many things have I put off because my career and finances are not where I want them to be?  Why on earth should how much money I'm making affect my dedication to work on my spirituality?  Or why should I let my weight affect my sense of adventure?  Well, I do.  And I'm not going to pretend like I've had some epiphany to help me NOT do that to myself--it's simply going to happen whether I want it to or not.  But I do realize that I should prioritize my goals for this year, and choose to first work on the ones that will have a greater effect on my willpower to fight other battles--take advantage of the "domino effect" with those things.  Most notably, steadying our income (aka find a freaking job that doesn't kill me), concentrating on my health, and seriously making some difficult and emotional explorations into my spirituality.

3) In the same vein, I've also realized how truly difficult making certain improvements will be because I don't want to ruin things that ARE working.  This is why I need to have patience and perseverance.  The slower I go, the easier it will be to make sure the changes I am making are not going to have a negative impact on the parts of my life that are going well.  But going slowly is HARD.  It means being okay with slow change.  And it means that obstacles will be slower to get over, and that can be a real challenge.


Inspiration from Friends


In a final note for today--I got a wonderful email from one of my oldest friends.  She too has decided enough is enough, and has dedicated herself to turning her life around in the areas with which she's not happy, and was reaching out for support and making a public statement of accountability.  Another reason why I love this time of year (and my friends).  She's definitely an inspiration, and I hope we can do our best to inspire each other this year.