What I Know Now

"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all"

Last year, one of my closest friends lost her mother just before the holidays. Several months later when I was visiting my friend and her family, her husband said something like, I know you are busy but could you try and call her more to check in. Of course, I could call my friend more but I realized that one of my very best friends probably thought I was too busy working to talk to her or support her when she really needed me. And frankly, she was right because I would let calls go without being returned for days until she called me again.

I am not the kind of person who wants to be living a kind of life where everything is hurried, planned, or just a check mark on my to do list but I have been. That conversation was a good wake up call about how I was living my life but it has taken me 6 months to get a place where I was willing to do anything about it. Luckily for me, she loves me even when I am not at my best.

When I turned twenty-seven I wrote in my journal that my life was exactly where I wanted it to be: new apartment in a new city, great job with students I love, healthy family, and a life full of really wonderful people. What I realize now is that life has a funny way of putting you in your place or at least right in the place you need to be. Twenty-seven did not turn out to be so easy and half of my twenty-eighth year presented a whole new kind of challenge. Simply achieving the life I imagined is not enough for me, I want to be fully engaged in living it.

I recently attended a conference and a presenter asked us, "what are we (student affairs professionals) doing that inhibits student growth?". I was not even resistant to the question because I immediately thought of the things that I do. All those things we are busy doing leave us exhausted which leads to our students only getting half of what we are capable of.

"Everyone thinks of changing the world but no one think of changing himself"

That question keeps repeating over and over for me because I realize that point is ringing true in every area of my life. I am only being a fraction of myself. My observation of myself and those around me is that we are running around with a thousand things to do and we are achieving a ton but we are not finding meaning in the things we are doing. Whether it is being a mom, student, starting our careers, etc. - everyone just seems to be busy but I am not sure what we are so busy doing.

I see a lot of people, myself included, saying "I do not have time for that"... for that could be a yoga class, reading a book you've had on the shelf for months, cooking a healthy meal, being a good friend, sleeping, sitting in silence, being phenomenal at your job, spending time with your partner, actually enjoying your life, or even risking getting your heart broken. I used to be a girl who was open to all that life had to offer, sometimes with reckless abandon, and now I feel like a girl with a schedule.

In 2011, I am asking myself "What I am doing that is inhibiting me from living a happy and fulfilled life?". I am going to keep asking it until I purge the things that are blocking me from being a woman that is living her life to the fullest.

"Your intent should pour out of you. It should emanate from every cell of your being so that you attract the people and circumstances that can support you in manifesting your desires"