This past week I’ve been keeping my eyes open for events that strike me as particularly “blog-worthy” and although there were some real doozies that certainly deserved or invited additional commentary, nothing has really inspired me to jump onto my soap box. I could link you to another blog on wordpress.com that lists “Stuff White People Like.” It’s kept me laughing because many of the items are so shamefully accurate (e.g. “apologies” and “dinner parties”). I could also comment on Barack Obama’s amazing, amazing speech regarding race that I caught almost by accident, and how it still managed to move and inspire me. *Note: Barack is no. 4 on the list of things/people that white people like.* Or I could talk about women “standing by their men” as again demonstrated by Gov. Spitzer’s wife this week. Current events and recent news bulletins certainly offer a large pool from which to choose subject matter. But alas, I have decided to try to keep things fairly close to home.
Tuesday was my birthday. I have a very hard time with each passing birthday. Logically, I realize that this is perhaps ridiculous (everyone keeps telling me so), but I mourn the loss of time each year. Birthdays really demand that you/I take stock in our lives and in our progress. What have I accomplished in twelve months? What had I hoped to accomplish? And then the sadness sets in because I worry about why life doesn’t look more like I want/expect it to “by now.” Those are dangerous words…”by now.” A friend wished me a happy birthday this morning and after explaining the sadness and ‘stock-taking’ that consumes me each year, she told me “at least you’re the type of person who does reflect. So many people do not.” And she’s right. I know plenty of people who never work on themselves and I imagine that they must simply go through the motions of life. It makes me wonder if they then wake up in old age and think, “F**k.”
Today, however, I’m promising myself more optimism in my life. There are innate traits that I will never be able to change about myself: I worry. I over-analyze. I’m an introvert. And I might not ever be that happy-go-lucky person that sprouts sunshine wherever I step. Those people actually really annoy me. But I do have a choice. I can be more deliberate and optimistic about those choices. I told someone yesterday that happiness is, in fact, a choice…and it’s the result of sustained effort. I have some work to do. 
Mantra
March 12, 2008
Last night while reading I came across a passage that stopped me in my tracks. Adapted from the Bhagavad Gita (and possibly my new mantra), it stated: “It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else’s life with perfection.” That simple idea really hit home with me as I instantly recognized myself within its message. To illustrate, a passage from an Elizabeth Gilbert book that I furiously highlighted upon reading:
I have boundary issues. Or maybe that’s not fair to say. To have isses with boundaries, one must have boundaries in the first place, right? But I disappear into the (people) I love. I am the permeable membrane. If I love you, you can have everything. You can have my time, my devotion, my ass, my money, my dog, my dog’s money, my dog’s time – everything. If I love you, I will carry for you all of your pain, I will assume for you all of your debts, I will protect you from your own insecurity, I will project upon you all sorts of good qualities that you have never actually cultivated in yourself and I will buy you expensive Christmas presents. I will give you the sun and the rain, and if they are not available, I will give you a sun check and a rain check. I will give you all this and more, until I get so exhausted and depeleted that the only way I can recover my energy is by becoming infatuated with someone (or something) else. …Dear God, I could use a little break from this cycle…”
And I do this with everyone in my life. I want to give. I want everyone to be thoughtful of their own lives and happy. And although I’ve always recognized this tragic flaw, I’ve never really been so determined to break my own patterns until now. It’s such a struggle, but the reality is that I fail at many relationships because of my eagerness to please and conform. I want you to like me and all of my ridiculous quirks, and somewhere in this crazy brain of mine, I feel like I need to justify your faith.
Someone recently told me at just the perfect moment: “Understand, Cassie, that everyone is where they are in their lives based on the decisions that they, themselves, have or have not made.” That resonated in my own life, and it was evident in the lives of those individuals that surround me. Such a basic truth, yet seemingly so profound. When we step away from the excuses, the guilt, and the reasoning, we are all exactly where we belong. So time to dust myself of cobwebs and get back to life. It’s guaranteed to be a slow beginning [due to limited resources (i.e. $$)] at the moment, but I can create my own destiny…and must remember that I can’t create any one else’s, including that unauthentic version of myself.
