How are You Spending Your Life?

 

Hello everyone, I hope all is well with you. I’m back today after taking some time away from the internet. Sometimes you just need to unplug, right? I’ve been busy with my work, my writing, and my family, just like you, I’m sure.

Today, I’d like to chat about choosing how we spend our lives. We only get so many years on this earth, and since I’m drawing closer to my twilight years, it has become more important than ever  that I spend my life in the way that makes me happy.

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The first thing that needs to be done is that you need to set priorities, and these are different for each individual. I’m sure everyone’s going to say, “I want to be happy” and it’s true, we all do. However, we need to go deeper than that. What makes us happy? What makes our hearts sing and fills us with peace?

You could spend your life chasing after a dream, accomplishing your goals and receiving accolades from an adoring public.

You could spend it creating a warm and loving family.

You could spend it searching for knowledge and inner peace.

You could spend it helping others and being of service to your fellow man.

There are millions of ways to spend your life. You get to choose, and it’s a daunting task for sure.

So, when I decided to make sure I was making the most of my time on earth, the first thing I decided was that I wanted a family, but I also wanted to be home with my kids. I didn’t want to send them off to daycare, but this also meant that I’d have to put my career on hold. This is the hard part. Sometimes when we choose priorities, we have to make sacrifices, and sometimes those sacrifices can be hard, but in the end, I feel like I did the right thing for me.

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While I was home, I rediscovered my love for writing. My passion grew as my writing improved. It seemed like the better I got the more I wanted to do it. I’m sure you’ve been in that situation before as well, when you discovered your passion.

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So, when I look at how many hours I have in the day and where I want to spend my time. I don’t have to spend a lot of time thinking about the answer because I already know. It makes choosing how I spend my day so much easier because I know what the extraneous garbage is that takes up so much of my time and I know to just let that go. It’s amazing how setting priorities or goals unclutters your mind and your life.

Do I have regrets? No. Does that mean I am a perfect parent? No. It does mean I tried my best. I’m sure there are days I could’ve handled things better, but I’m sure every parent feels that way. Plus, I rediscovered my truest passion and I’m working on improving my craft, and that’s when I seem to be the happiest. Everything else is just extra stuff that used to take up my time. Now every minute counts and that’s how I want to spend my life. How about you? Have you thought about it? Leave a comment, I’d love to hear from you!

 

 

Friday Inspiration

I love this quote! It always inspires me and I thought you may need a little inspiration today as well! 🙂

 

Let’s pull Together and Do This!

 

Hello everyone, I hope all is well with you. I’m back today after a long week of work and writing. I finally nailed a scene I’ve been struggling with and it feels so good! 😊

But enough about that. I came across this meme on Facebook and it inspired me to write this post, so I thought I’d share it with all of you. It’s mainly for us women, but guys can help with this too, so keep reading.

For years, women have been trained to search for their physical flaws and try to fix them. We’re bombarded by ads for makeup, clothes, and physical fitness equipment that shows us how to improve our appearance. This has made many corporations and plastic surgeons rich while tearing down women’s self-esteem. The message we’re receiving is, the only way you’ll feel good about yourself is if you use this product, buy these clothes, and get this type of plastic surgery.

It’s up to us women to pull together and say:

 

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We’re a powerful force when we come together. A force to be reckoned with. So, let’s do it. Let’s pull together and create an environment of support against this onslaught that tears us down.

Instead of focusing on our faults, let’s focus on our health. Let’s exercise because it’s good for us, not to look better. We’ll look better because we’re healthy and we’ll feel better because we’re healthy.

 

Photo credit: Ed Yourdon on VisualHunt.com / CC BY-NC-SA

Let’s focus on our diet, not to lose weight and try to be model-thin, but because we want to take care of our health. We’ll feel better if we eat healthier. The outside will take care of itself if we focus on the inside.

Photo credit: CameliaTWU on VisualHunt /CC BY-NC-ND

This same concept can be applied to our mental health. Let’s change our negative self-talk to positive. Let’s forgive ourselves for our imperfections because let’s face it, everyone has them. Let’s practice giving some of the love we give to everyone else to ourselves. Let’s teach our daughters that it’s okay to think of ourselves. To take care of ourselves. To set boundaries. We’ve come a long way, but we’ve got a long way to go, too.

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Let’s make our health and happiness a priority. If we take responsibility for our own happiness and chase goals that we want to achieve, our relationships will be better. Our relationships won’t be the only source of happiness for us and it’ll take the pressure off our spouses. They’ll be able to work on themselves and pursue their own happiness.  Once we do that, we’ll find we’re happier and our relationships will be better. It’s like the ripple effect of tossing a stone in the water and watching the ripples float farther and farther away until they pass through the whole lake. We can do this. Who’s with me? Leave a comment, I’d love to hear from you!

 

 

The Art of saying “No”

Hello everyone, I hope all is well with you. I’m back today after an eventful weekend. My computer died this weekend, so of course, I had to rush right out and get a new one because, you know, writing, right?

 

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So that’s why this post is late. But enough about that. What I’d like to talk about today is Social Media and its effects on communication skills.

I’ve noticed a trend happening with social media and that is when someone sends you an instant message, and if you don’t want to chat with that person, you don’t respond. You just ignore the message. Now, I understand, maybe you don’t want to chat with that person or don’t want to participate in the activity they’re asking you to do, but is just ignoring them and hoping they’ll get the hint the best course of action?

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This trend is disturbing. Why? Because we as human need to be able to say no. We need to be able to do it without offending the other person. What happens when we’re in a face to face situation and we’ve got to tell the other person we don’t want to do what they want to do?

What if that person is your boss? Are you going to just walk away and pretend he didn’t ask you to participate in that meeting?

 

Photo credit: Internet Archive Book Images on Visual Hunt / No known copyright restrictions

This is a skill our kids will need to master if they’re going to make it in the working world. We need to communicate negative information in a diplomatic way. Social Media is breaking down the barriers in a lot of ways, but it’s also putting up walls.

I find it so odd that people can’t say no and just be honest and say: “I’m not interested in that kind of activity, but thanks for asking.”

That’s not offensive in the least. It states your lack of interest, so the person doesn’t feel rejected, and they’re able to recognize this rejection isn’t personal, and it’s polite. You can say no without hurting your friend’s feelings.

Another positive aspect of being able to say no is that it communicates your lack of interest in that activity, so your friend will probably remember this and won’t ask you to do it again.  Being able to say no allows you to establish boundaries.

So does ignoring messages on Social Media, but ignoring messages damages the friendship and creates an environment of distrust. Your friend is left wondering why you’re ignoring them. Did they offend you? Are you upset with them? Telling your friend “no” is also good for them. They aren’t left hanging and wondering what happened between you two. They can move on and ask another friend to participate and your friendship is still intact.  So, learn the art of saying no in a compassionate way. You’ll be glad you did. 😊

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Thanks for stopping by and reading my post. How do you tell someone No without offending them? Leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you!