No better or worse, just different
"Imagine you go to sleep tonight and while you are fast asleep, a miracle happens. All your problems disappear and everything you wanted arrives. When you wake up the next morning, how will you discover that the miracle happened? What would you see and smell? Who would you be with? Where would you be? What else are you going to notice?”
Pressure… pushing down on me, pushing down on you
Nobody has a perfect life. But most people have some kind of life plan – things they want to achieve by a certain stage in life. You might have a set of ideal goals for each stage of your life… further education in your teens, marriage in your twenties, children in your thirties, etc.
But what happens when life seems to be meandering without direction? You take stock of your current situation and realise that it just doesn’t match up to your projected life plan. Even just seeing people make choices that are different from yours can cause you to question yourself. We can all feel under pressure to ‘get life right’, whether that pressure comes from the media, from family, or even from ourselves. So what do you do?
Ask yourself these questions:
• Are you left hankering over some ‘perfect’ past?
• Are you straining towards a future that seems beyond your grasp?
• Are you struggling to accept your current situation?
• Where does the pressure you feel come from?
• What are the good things about where you are now?
A choice to accept it or change it
I remember talking to one of my mates soon after my daughter was born, when I had been married for a few years. He was desperate for a new girlfriend at the time, whilst I was feeling a little envious of my carefree single mates on their nights out. As we talked, I realised that we both wanted elements of what the other had.
Our conversation made me appreciate what I have. It made me think about the choices that I had made along the way. I realised that my life was no better and no worse than my mate’s, just different. I made a choice to accept the decisions I had already made, to be positive and to make the best of my circumstances.
Think back to the scenario we started out with. The picture you create in your imagination should give you an idea of your 'perfect' present. This may be very close to where you see your life at the moment, or it may be far from your present reality. It is important to notice both. Perhaps you could begin to think about things you can change to close the gap between your current situation and your ideal scenario.
There are some things, however, that we simply cannot change. Sometimes we just have to accept things as they are. If you can learn to see the good in your situation and be content with the way things are, you are doing very well.
“I want to be able to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." (Anon)
Written by Matt Thomas.
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