Allison Vesterfelt's Blog, page 18

Weekend Reading

photo: Vinoth Chandar, Creative Commons

Each weekend I love to leave you with a list of the best things I have read on the Internet because, well, sometimes, you just need something great to read. I’m so excited to share these articles with you, and I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

If you read something great this week, leave me a note in the comments. And mostly, enjoy your weekend. Do something awesome!

1. How to Have A Happy Home by The Nester

This week, a group of bloggers traveled to Uganda with Compassion International, and their stories are all so beautiful, it was hard to choose which to share. This article, not only made me smile, it reminded me that the differences between us and our African brothers and sister are not nearly as powerful as our similarities.

2. Cynicism Doesn’t Reach A Lost World by Ed Stetzer

As I read this story, I couldn’t help but think about my own cynicism when it comes to “Evangelism”. I know you’re not supposed to say that, as a Christian, but for me it’s true. I found this article interesting and challenging and important food for thought.

3. 8 Things Your Brain Does Wrong Everyday by Carolyn Gregoire

Negative thinking, missing what’s right in front of us, seeing patterns where there are none. Our brains can play crazy tricks on us. That is, until we realize it’s happening, and can redirect it.

4. The Worst Mistake You Don’t Know You’re Making by Jeff Goins

I wrote a post this week about the power of words, and so this article by my friend Jeff rang true with me in so many ways. Jeff also happens to be one of the bloggers in Uganda, and the story he shares is powerful. Join me in taking the challenge he issues at the end of his article.

5. When Having an Opinion is A Weary Endeavor by Nate Pyle

Sometimes it feels exhausting to have an opinion—not just online, but in any relationship. I really appreciate the honesty of this post, and the suggestion to keep pushing forward toward a better way.

The post Weekend Reading appeared first on Allison Vesterfelt.

Resisting Change Is Keeping You From A Bright Future

This is a guest post from Stephanie Gates, a beautiful writer and mother to four kids. Not only is she a dreamer and risk-taker, she has a wealth of wisdom to offer. You’re going to love this story she’s sharing today.

I stood in the kitchen that Sunday morning and stared hopelessly at the stack of breakfast dishes. It was not yet 9:00a.m. and already I felt sad and exhausted. I couldn’t muster the energy to clean the counter, much less get my family ready and out of the door for church.

The past few months had been exhausting. Something had to give.

Photo Credit: Jodie Wilson, Creative Commons

Last March, my husband and I took the risk of a lifetime. We dreamed of raising our four young children in the mountains, and after years of talking and planning, we finally cashed our assets, and moved our family 1400 miles west.

Then, in May, my husband was in a bicycle accident. His body recovered, but the effects of a serious concussion radically changed our lives.

In the beginning, I fought against every single change.

I would go to the grocery store – a task that he had gladly taken over a few years ago – and grumble the entire time. I hated grocery shopping, and it wasn’t supposed to be my job.

When business calls became my responsibility, I would inwardly sigh. It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

Every Saturday morning I made the waffles, and as I did, I would reflect on how he used to love to cook breakfast. Every time I completed a task that, in our family, had been his responsibility, inwardly I would scream: I’m not supposed to be doing this!

I wasn’t frustrated or resentful of him. I was thankful he was alive, and healing.

But I was deeply resentful of the unexpected turn my life had taken.

For over a decade, my husband and I had been partners, and friends. Raising a large family is a big job, and we had a rhythm to our family life we both enjoyed. We cooked together, hiked together, put kids to bed together, cleaned the kitchen together.

We were a team. Only now, my teammate was benched. And I was overwhelmed and exhausted.

I went to church that July morning anyway, and I asked an acquaintance to pray for me. Not out of faith, really, but just because I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t tell her why, or what I needed. I wasn’t really sure myself.

But she prayed for me, and then after the service she approached me. “I never do this,” she said timidly. “Please forgive me if I’m overstepping my bounds, but when I was praying I had a very clear thought.”

“The task before you is not your problem. What’s wearing you down is your expectations.”

For days I thought about her insight. I began to see how, more than the changes in my daily life, it was my resistance to those changes that required most of my energy. I was fighting to keep life the way it was “supposed” to be, the way it had always been.

I was frustrated and angry that my life was suddenly, inexplicably, different.

I was fighting because I was afraid. The question pulsing under every resentful sigh was, “What if this is the way it is?” For so long, I’d thrived in the predictable rhythm of my marriage and family life. What if we never found that again?  What if he never fully recovered?

I wanted a future I could predict.

I wanted to know he would eventually be the man I’d known for the past fifteen years, and our marriage would go back to the way it had always been.  I wasn’t exhausted because of my new responsibilities.  I was worn down by my fearful resistance to them.

So, I let go of my fear.

I stopped focusing on how things were “supposed” to be. One thing I knew for certain: life always changes. No matter what happened, it would not always be this way. Even if I the changes in his abilities were permanent, even if our life together looked very different than I could anticipate, it would still continue to grow and move forward.

When I let go of my fear of the future, I immediately had more peace. I could breathe again. I no longer resented my new workload, and I no longer felt overwhelmed.

My husband continues to heal, and our life together continues to unfold. But before I could enjoy a future with him, I had to let go of my fear of the unknown.

_______

Stephanie Gates is a mom to four beautifully rambunctious little kids and wife to a guy who still makes her smile. Last spring she moved to Colorado, where she fell in love with the mountain air and the Anglican church. You can read more from Stephanie on her blog, A Wide Mercy.

The post Resisting Change Is Keeping You From A Bright Future appeared first on Allison Vesterfelt.

Dear Jesus, I Still Don’t Know

I spend most of my time talking about the things I know.

Photo Credit: Moyan Brenn, Creative Commons

Here, especially, but not just here. With my friends, at church, to strangers I meet, to new acquaintances. And, if for some strange reason, I’m talking about something I don’t know, I pretty much just fake it. I pretend like I do know. That’s good enough, isn’t it?

There’s something terrifying about the idea of not knowing.

It’s disorienting. Confusing.

Recently I heard a favorite author and friend of mine speak at a college chapel here in Nashville and she started her message by telling the audience a few things she feels the need to say on every college campus. Each of them were profound in their own way, but one of them especially stuck with me.

One of them went like this: If college is a time marked for you by questions and confusion and “Jesus, I still don’t know…” you’re not behind. You’re on a really good journey.

I think this is good advice for all us, honestly—not just college students.

I think that’s part of the reason those words stuck with me and resonated with me so much, although I’m nearly a decade removed from my college life. Because at different points along the way, I have found myself believing the lie that being adult means having all the answers.

Somewhere along the way, I lost the beauty of: “Jesus… I still don’t know.”

I still don’t know what I want to “be when I grow up,” I still don’t know what that passage of scripture means, I still don’t know what it looks like to be a daughter, a sister, a mother, a wife.

There is beauty in the not knowing, if we’re willing to see it.

Of course, There’s a difference between asking the questions, and worshiping them.

The answers are available to us if we are willing to seek them. Questions without the pursuit of answers can be more than unnerving. They can be debilitating.

Maturity is found in seeking and uncovering. Truth is busy unfolding right in front of us.

But sometimes we find an answer, and then lose it again for awhile. Sometimes finding one answer reveals a dozen questions we never realized we had. Sometimes questions are deeper and wider and more complex than we ever realized.

Exploring the depths of those questions takes humility and patience.

It takes the strength, courage and wisdom to whisper: “Dear Jesus, I still don’t know…”

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The Danger of Choosing The Wrong Friends

Take a quick minute, before you start reading this blog post, to think of a few words you would use to describe yourself. Don’t worry, I won’t make you share these words in the comments section or anything, so be as honest as possible.

Photo Credit: Creative Commons

One combination might be: competent and put-together.

Another might be: scattered and confused. 


Another might be: happy and the life-of-the-party

Another could be: a failure at everything I do.

Again, be as honest as possible. How would you really describe yourself? Once you have the few words in your head, ask yourself:

Where do those words come from?

In other words, how do I know these things about myself? Even further, how have they come into being? If I’m thoughtful and caring, how I have become that way? If I’m unhealthy and destructive… why?

Have you ever wondered about that—about where our sense of identity comes from? Obviously, this is a question that has been explored by philosophers for centuries. So I certainly can’t answer it (or really even skim it) in a short blog post.

But I have been considering lately about how much of our identity comes from outside of us—from what people say about us, or to us, or even just around us. I couldn’t help but share this brief thought.

The words others speak in our presence are not just benign.

They become something important.

They become a part of us.

Chances are, when you think carefully about the words you use to describe yourself, you’ll find you did not invent these words. They were spoken to you and over you and become a part of your being.

I don’t know about you, but I haven’t traditionally thought about identity this way.

I have thought a great deal about how my thoughts and actions create my identity, about how my past experiences have shaped who I have become. I’ve tried to organize and order new experiences (school, travel, career, etc) as a way to help a positive identity continue to grow.

But I haven’t really spent much time thinking about how the people in my immediate circle actually begins to shape how I see myself.

The words they say about me…

The words they say to me…

The words they utter about the world, and about others…

All of these words are continually shaping and shifting how I perceive the world, and how I perceive my place in it. This helps to create my identity.

And for this reason, the friends I choose couldn’t be more important.

If I’m friends with people who gossip about others, who focus on my weaknesses, and who think the world is out to get them—no wonder I feel fearful and incompetent. If I’m friends with people who affirm me often, who speak highly of others, and believe anything is possible, no wonder I believe the same things, too.

Our friends are busy shaping our souls and the world around us. That’s a big deal.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I think we can be kind to everyone.

We can be gracious with everyone. We can reach out, even to those who are gossiping and negative, and be the catalyst for change in our communities. But at some point you have to decide that those you let in close, those you share your secrets with, those you invite into your inner circle, will be safe people.

Honest people.

Kind people.

People who speak good things into existence.

There is an incredible danger in choosing the wrong friends.

The stakes are too high. The cost is too steep. It may be the difference between feeling like a failure, and knowing you have what it takes. It may mean the difference between becoming a failure and becoming a success. It may be the difference between becoming the best or worst version of yourself.

You become like the people you hang around. You become who they say you are.

So choose carefully. Speak carefully.

Who you become may depend on it.

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Don’t Bother Overcoming Your Weaknesses

What’s your greatest weakness?

I don’t know about you, but whenever anyone asks me this question, I always think to myself: “Wait… so I can only give you one?” I have many weaknesses, but if I had to tell you my greatest weakness, I think I would say that I often get lost inside of myself, and miss what’s happening around me.

Several other unfavorable qualities stem from this tendency. I tend to be a little disjointed and disorganized. I forget things (like birthdays and anniversaries, details to stories, and responding to e-mails and text messages—sorry everyone). I lose things. I often overlap things on my calendar.

I’m not always a great listener, if only because I can be a little scattered in conversations.

Photo Credit: Oleh Slobodeniuk, Creative Commons

And really, from the time I was very young, I perceived these qualities would hold me back from being as successful as I wanted to be.

In the public school system, I watched my friends, who were for the most part great students, do things I didn’t do. They had planners and spreadsheets and elaborate binder systems to keep themselves organized. They listened to lectures and took notes and actually paid attention (gasp) for an entire 45 minute class.

All of this seemed like an incredible feat to me (I was busy writing poetry during math class) but since I cared a great deal about being a successful student, I figured I better learn to be like them, too.

So I did. I taught myself to be organized.

In fact, I became a little bit neurotic about it. I found that, if I could keep my external world organized, no one would ever really be able to know how disorganized my internal world was. When I went inside of my head, things were a little chaotic. But, in my physical space, I could organize clothes by color, space the hangers exactly one inch apart, and create elaborate systems to keep my binder organized.

I’m not sure it made much of a difference in actuality, but it sure felt like it did.

It created the illusion of order, although order never really actually existed.

Have you ever noticed how that happens?

How, in trying to “overcome your weaknesses” you actually make the problem worse? 
For me, it feels like I’m the worst version of myself when I’m focusing on my weaknesses.

I’d love to say I’ve gotten better with remembering things, listening, holding on to details, staying engaged with what’s happening right in front of me—and I suppose, in some ways, I have. I’ve learned to be really functional (although, try to convince me of that the next time I forget a meeting or lock myself out of the house).

But I’m not sure the improvement I’ve seen has to do with an effort to overcome my weaknesses.

In fact, I’m starting to think an obsession over my weaknesses hasn’t done anything except highlight them—both to myself and the people around me. I’m starting to think focusing on my weaknesses has distracted me from all the beautiful things my personality brings—imagination, innovation, creativity, thoughtfulness, and empathy.

Most of the improvement I’ve seen, I’m convinced, comes from focusing on my strengths.

Although I’m “in my head,” I’m also very imaginative. Although I forget things (like e-mails or texts) it’s usually because I’m busy creating and being with the people who are right here with me.

Every single weakness I have comes with a corresponding strength.

We tend to forget this, but it’s true. Even the most shameful weakness you can think of have strengths to represent. Steven Pressfield, in his book Turning Pro talks about how addicts are really just confused creatives. They need the thrill of the chase. They’re just chasing the wrong stuff.

This concept is Biblical too. 2 Corinthians 12 is where Paul shares how he actually boasts in his weakness, because where he is weak, Christ is strong.

How many of us boast in our weaknesses?

What if we did it? What if, instead of focusing on the detriments—even trying to overcome them—what if we simply focused on growing our strengths? What if we tried to forget about our weaknesses (and the weaknesses of others) altogether?

I have a feeling even our most terrible weaknesses could become our greatest assets.

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Quit People-Pleasing And Do What You Actually Want

I’m not sure when I first started basing my life choices around what I perceived other people wanted me to do, but it’s safe to say I’ve been doing it for as long as I can remember.

Photo Credit: alexandria lomanno, Creative Commons

In middle school I tried out for volleyball because Mary Anne Peterson played. I didn’t really want to play volleyball. I didn’t even like it. Every time I hit the ball, my wrists stung for what felt like hours. But Mary Anne was one of the “cool kids” and I was shy and awkward, and I hoped volleyball would be my ticket to the “cool kid” club.

Looking back now, the logic seems so faulty.

How could I have thought that doing what other people thought was “cool” would make me cool also? Why was I so quick to assume everyone else was “cooler” than me? But at the same time I write all of that, I have to admit this is not a mentality I outgrew in middle school.

All through high school, and into my twenties, I found myself doing things I thought would make me cool or noticed, pretty much all of the time.

It became like a habit.

If someone acted angry with me, I would literally lie awake at night, wondering what I could have done wrong. After a particularly fitful night of sleep, I tried to explain it to my husband. I told him it felt as if the anger was a thing unto itself—a living, breathing, powerful force of destruction sent out in the universe to attack and destroy me.

“But anger can’t hurt you,” I remember him saying. “It isn’t actually alive.”

Still, despite his urging, I couldn’t shake the feeling that, if someone were angry with me, it meant I had done something horribly wrong. One angry text message, one frustrated look, one passive “snub” from a friend and I would be ruined for weeks. Unless, of course, I did something to stop it, to refute it, to cancel it out.

So, in this sense, people-pleasing didn’t seem like a decision I was making.

It seemed like a necessity, like the only possible way to make my life livable and fair.

But the longer I went on like this (or, let’s be honest, the longer I go on like this) the more I realize this isn’t making my life livable or fair at all. In fact, quite the opposite. This is like a bad habit or addiction that feeds on itself—that starts out meeting a really specific need or craving, but ends up destroying me in the end.

People-pleasing has ruined everything I’ve ever built, destroyed everything beautiful I’ve ever loved, and will ultimately kill my spirit if I let it. People-pleasing will prevent me from ever doing anything meaningful in this world.

It will steal my joy and rob me of success and stomp out fun and laughter before I’m even allowed to have it.

People-pleasing makes life terrifying, makes social interactions a constant threat, makes it nearly impossible to have close friends or an intimate marriage.

The worst part it is, the cure isn’t what you think.

It’s not “doing whatever I want.”. That was my intuitive response, so for a period of time, I did whatever I felt like doing, whenever I felt like doing it, without regard for who it would impact or hurt. But what followed was a season of life which holds some of my biggest regrets and deepest wounds. Doing “whatever I wanted” only made me feel isolated, chaotic and alone.

I’ll be honest. I wanted to title this post, “How I Quit People-Pleasing So I Could Do What I Actually Want,” but even before I started writing I realized that wouldn’t be totally honest.

I’m not completely there yet.

But I’m getting there…

And thankfully, I don’t think I’m the only one who isn’t there yet. I was talking to a friend recently about this people-pleasing phenomenon and what she said was telling. She said, “I wish there were a way you could quit people-pleasing that didn’t actually involve having people be upset with you.”

Yes, I thought. I wish that too. And yet, as her comment suggested—isn’t that the point? Perhaps the reason so many of us still struggle with living our lives to please others, rather than doing what we know is right for us, is that we don’t believe we’re strong enough to face what follows.

Disappointment.

Hurt.

Anger.

It takes emotional strength to face these things—

To take responsibility for what is ours and to practice empathy for the rest. It takes great clarity of mind and spirit to sort that out. It takes fortitude to own the role we play. It takes incredible grace to believe we can care for someone’s hurt, without choosing to eradicate it.

So I guess what I’m doing now is reminding myself I am strong enough. I have the clarity, the fortitude, the grace. I haven’t done a great job of utilizing it in the past, but I have it. I might not have had the ability to make my own choices when I was five, or when I was thirteen. I may not have known myself well enough.

But I do now. I can now.

And I also remind myself how much it matters—how much it impacts every aspect of my life. How my career will suffer, my marriage will suffer, my ability to genuinely love and care for others will suffer if I don’t choose to make a change now.

It’s incredibly motivating. Healing isn’t here, but it’s coming.

For now, that is enough.

The post Quit People-Pleasing And Do What You Actually Want appeared first on Allison Vesterfelt.

Weekend Reading

photo: Vinoth Chandar, Creative Commons

Each weekend I love to leave you with a list of the best things I have read on the Internet because, well, sometimes, you just need something great to read. I’m so excited to share these articles with you, and I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

If you read something great this week, leave me a note in the comments. And mostly, enjoy your weekend. Do something awesome!

Why Empathy Is Your Most Important Skill (And How to Practice It) by Chad Fowler (via lifehacker)

I identify with the temperament Chad describes in this piece—I’m an introvert, but highly concerned about people and their feelings. And since I often find myself feeling burdened by my strong sense of empathy, I really enjoyed the list of reasons it can be so powerful. It makes me want to continue to cultivate and grow those abilities in my life.

How to Get Flat Abs, Have Amazing Sex and Rule the World in 8 Easy Steps by Kate Bartolotta (via Huffington Post)

At first, when I saw this post on Twitter, I was sure it was spam. But it isn’t, and it’s a great read that will challenge you to enjoy your life without buying into the lie that perfection is attainable with eight easy steps.

84 Things About Healthy People by Andy Traub

Reading this list just reminded me how seeking mental, spiritual, physical and emotional health can be one of the most beautiful, selfless things we can do for our communities. Health is the gift that overflows from our live into the lives of others.

The Gift of Inadequacy by Jon Acuff (via Taylor Gahm)

Although this post is by Jon Acuff, it really features a TED Talk by Taylor Gahm. It lasts about 13 minutes and is wonderfully insightful, funny, down-to-earth and just honest enough to make you feel the tiniest bit uncomfortable (ha). Truly, though, it’s very convicting and helpful. Watch it. “It’s so much easier to be peddlers of change than to let change hit home in our own life.” —Taylor Gahm

Want More Success and Happiness? 14 Things You Must Do Less by Farnoosh Brock (ProlificLiving)

I thought this was a great list of things to do less in order to simplify and beautify your life. It included several things I never would have thought of. I still especially struggle with #12 and #14.

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14 Simple Steps Toward Happiness in 2014

My theme for this year (if you’re not sick of it already) is to be kind to myself, to take better care of myself emotionally, physically and spiritually. I mentioned in an earlier post that this attitude has, unexpectedly, made me more productive and efficient. As you might imagine, it has also made me way more happy.

Photo Credit: Purple Sherbet Photography, Creative Commons

My gut says being “kind” to myself won’t look the same for me over the entire year; and that my path to being kind to myself will look different from yours—but these small, seemingly insignificant ways I’m caring for myself are ushering in tiny, very significant moments of joy to my life.

Again, they’re very simple, but that’s part of the beauty.

It makes me realize how happiness might not be as complicated or illusive as I once thought.

As you read, be thinking of what your own “happiness list” might look like. What would be on it? Chances are, as you make a mental or actual list, you’ll find the contents are quite simple.

You may start to wonder why you haven’t been being kind to yourself all along.

1. Sleeping

I’ve been letting myself sleep as long as I need it. Of course, many days, I have to be up at a certain time. But I also make space for naps during the day when I feel like it, I sleep in on the weekends, and I go to bed on time. I don’t guilt myself for needing more sleep. I figure if my body asks for it, I should probably give it.

2. Taking break from “working out”

I’ve been a running girl, typically, and the “runners high” is no joke. For the past few years I’ve been borderline addicted—running most days of the week. Recently though, I’ve just decided to give my body a break. Instead, I do yoga, or go for walks, or do something else that is active and fun.

3. Buying full-price

This might seem strange, but after years (and years and years) of bargains shopping, I’ve realized that having one item I really love is better than having three items that don’t quite fit the need or desire.

4. Supplements

I’ve just been taking a few vitamins that I never gave myself permission to buy before. I figure, as I nourish my body, it can’t help but make me more effective in all areas of my life.

5. Refusing to diet

I actually eat pretty healthy. I’m just not dieting. I eat all the chocolate and drink all the red wine I want. But I also eat plenty of fresh vegetables, and try to buy quality ingredients. When I eat quality ingredients, it always seems like less is more.

6. Using lotion

This seems dumb, but I bought some nice lotion, and I use it every morning. Something about the ritual of putting it on each day helps me stay connected to the parts of my body that usually get neglected in the winter. And it’s occurred to me recently how crazy it is that I neglected the largest organ in my body (skin) for so long.

7. Rejecting guilt

I’m rejecting guilt—from myself, and from others—as a strategy to get me to change my actions. Guilt is a powerful motivator, it just isn’t always a positive motivator, and what I’m finding is that I felt guilty a lot. In all that space where guilt used to be, I’m practicing empathy instead.

8. Investing in friendships

I don’t know where I got this idea, but somehow I was walking around with the unspoken assumption that work was my primary responsibility in life, and relationships were secondary (if I had time). That assumption led me to a place I didn’t like very much. This year, I’m investing myself fully in seeking out and growing relationships with people I care deeply for.

9. Being generous

Research shows that being generous actually makes you happier, so I’m treating myself to some absurd generosity this year. You guys—giving things to other people is so much fun!!

10. Quitting diet coke

In a way, Diet Coke made me happy, but mostly I was just addicted and it made me feel like crap. So I quit.

11. Taking a whole weekend

The past few weekends of this year I’ve taken the whole weekend (novel concept) to do whatever I want. I honestly can’t remember the last time in my life I did that, but it’s been heavenly. It’s amazing how much more productive my work week becomes, and how much more I have to offer the world, when I’m rested and happy.

12. Slowing down

I tend to move really fast. But lately I’m just allowing myself to slow down a little. Or, as one blog-reader described it, “to experience life, rather than just consume it.”

13. Taking long showers

All I can say is this: Sometimes it feels like all is lost, but really you just need to take a shower.

14. Choosing to be happy

For most of my life,  I didn’t think it was possible to make this choice. Truthfully. I was always waiting for my circumstances to make me happy, or my friends to make me happy, or my job to make me happy. I rode the wave of my mood swings and my emotions. These days, I’ve just decided to start practicing the choice of happiness. It doesn’t always work. But happiness, I’m finding, is a little bit like a muscle, and I’m learning to flex it.

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It’s This Easy to Start Over

Recently I was sitting around the table with a group of new friends, and since it happened to be New Years Day, we were sharing our dreams and hopes for the new year, as well as some of our best memories from the year that had passed.

At one point, someone asked this question:

What do you plan to do differently this year from last year?

Photo Credit: Mayr, Creative Commons

Each of us thought about it and slowly offered our answers. Before long, we had all shared except for my friend Katie. Katie is one of my favorite people, and I respect her a ton, so I waited patiently for her response.

Finally, she said: “I don’t know… I don’t really think about the New Year that way. I guess I just don’t wait for a certain time of year to do something differently”

“If I want to change something about my life, I just change it.”

Her response was really simple, but totally profound for me. I mean, how many of us know we want something to change in our lives—but we’re waiting for the “right time” to start over?

What if we don’t have to wait anymore?

What if it’s just this easy to start over?

Honestly, I like New Year’s Resolutions. I know many people don’t, but I do. I love the having a point on my calendar—a designated day—that marks the end of one season and the start of another. Something about it feels fresh and exciting to me.

But my friend Katie’s advice also has me thinking: If I realize, in February or May or November that something needs to change about my life, why would I wait for January to change it?

Why can’t I change it now?

Better yet, if my resolutions aren’t working out the way I thought they would, the way I wanted them to—why not go ahead and make the adjustments needed right this minute?

Do I have to wait until January to fix it? Why can’t I just fix it now?

What if it’s this easy to start over?

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How I Stopped Spectating And Started Enjoying My Life

Whenever I go to a party, I have a strategy. (I probably shouldn’t be telling you this).

Big crowds stress me out, so whenever I go to an event where there’s a room full of people I don’t know, I have a technique: I choose a spot against the wall that’s fairly inconspicuous, point my back toward it, and stand about a foot away from the wall itself.

I usually take something with me—a phone, a pamphlet, a plate of food—so it doesn’t look like I am just standing there.

From there, I watch the party.

Photo Credit: martinak15, Creative Commons

The beautiful thing about this place at a party is you get to keep tabs on everybody. You get to watch the token single dude make a fool of himself with every pretty girl in the room, introducing himself and recycling his same cheesy jokes over and over again.

You get to watch the “important” people in the room try to downplay their importance, and everyone else try to prove how “important” they are.

You can make fun of people (secretly, of course, in your head) for telling a joke that tanks, or for sticking out their hand to shake, while the other person goes in for a hug — or the most tragic — mistaking a “high five” gesture for a hug request.

That’s the worst.

From my spot on the wall I can watch the whole party unfold.

I can keep track of who is friends with who, who appears to be nice, and who appears to be no fun at all.

If someone wants to talk to me, they know where to find me. After all, I don’t change positions for the entire party.

And when they do come to talk to me, I’ll be there ready, with my food prop in place and my tone of voice prepared to meet them enthusiastically (if they’re “that” type) or intellectually (because I overheard them talking about the Pleistocene era, and I Googled it so I could know what it was).

It’s really wonderfully safe this way. In fact, for a long time, I was rather proud of my party-going strategy. I thought maybe one day I could patent it or something.

But the truth is, I’m not just a spectator at parties. I’m a spectator in life.

It feels good, scooting around the perimeter of parties and people and relationships and circumstances, back to the wall, trying to make sure nothing jumps out at you in surprise. It was careful, I thought. Conscientious, I told myself. Safe.

I congratulated myself for my maturity.

But what I didn’t realize was that, when you live your life and your parties this way, you have very little control over what happens to you. It might seem like you have control. You feel like you do—more control than you would have if you got in the mess, right in there high-fiving and hugging and telling bad jokes like everyone else.

But when you live your life like this, you’re powerless. Your back is to a wall. Literally.

You’ve surrendered control to everyone else in the room.

I often hear people talk about how they have control issues and need to learn they don’t have control over everything, and I get what they mean. I’m like that too. Sometimes I try to control things I don’t have control over, and it’s a really unattractive trait. But what if I don’t need to learn to give up more control? What if that’s not the answer?

What if what I need to learn is that I do have control?

What if I need to get in the party?

What if, what I need to do is get my back off the wall and jump into the party?

Something amazing happens when I stop spectating and start enjoying my own life. I don’t have to talk myself out of being controlling, or being judgmental. All the comparing and gossiping and judgement just melts away. I snap out of it. I realize I’m just as silly and screwed up as the rest of them—telling stupid jokes, spilling my drink, laughing at myself.

I discover I’m just as loved and beautiful.

[This post is adapted from Chapter 1 of my book Packing Light. To get the complete first chapter for free, click HERE.]

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