inspiredbyinspiredbydooce.blogspot.com

I lead a rather simple life. I do similar things everyday. Sometimes I watch television when I could be reading a book. Sometimes I would rather go to Starbucks than the beach. Somedays when I am napping I let my machine pick up my calls.

One of my most acomplished friends is currently spending 6 months travelling and volunteering in South America. She went by herself. She is planning her journey as she finds it. She is creating enough memories to last other people several lifetimes. At first I thought I was jealous of her, and of her adventure. But I am not. I am inspired by it. I know me. I know I could spend a month in Europe travelling by myself. I also know that (right now) I could not spend six months in South America, by myself, without an iterniary. So I look at her amazing life and say - that is not my ultimate expression of me.

I have another friend - lived all over the world - gone to university in three countries for two degrees and worked in Switzerland for the UN. She speaks at least three languages fluently and I think three others passably. She has more life and energy in her than almost anyone I have ever met. She also has the most intense fear of emotional-romantic intamacy of anyone I have ever met (she knows this). Her life suits her, it allows her to push herself in all the ways which she wants, and to excel, and to be her ultimate expression of herself.

So why these stories? (and trust me, I have some pretty amazing friends, I could go on). Because these are woman whose adventures, but more importantly, whose spirits I admire. I was (for a long time) pushing myself to be the very best I could be - and I recently realized that how I saw myself, was not, in fact, how I was. I knew what my reflection looked like, so I never stopped to see if maybe it had changed. And it had.

Now I am in the very fortunate and deeply petrifying position of being at a crossroads - and I am completely okay with it (or so I tell myself). I can now decide who I want to make myself. How I think I can be the best, most true me possible. This is not a question that needs to be answered overnight, or a question with only one answer, or a question with a permanent answer. I can be an international aid worker, or a mother, or a flight attendant, or a nurse, or a teacher, or a writer, or a pet groomer. The world is full of extraordinary people living ordinary lives (and also ordinary people living extradorinary lives, which is an integral part of my theory of North American humanity, but is for another post). And I think that as long as I am an extraordinary person living an ordinary life I will be happy. I will strive, in my life, to never be ordinary. Or complacent. Or boring. Or bored. And though at different points I will be all those things, I will never be trapped in any of them. I will strive to become the best me I can be.

**Pleased by advised that the author is available to address your group or organization with inspirational, psycho-babble, b*llsh*t for a speaking fee of $100/hr. Quality assured as she is still innocent and optimistic enough to believe what she says.