Preparation Meet Simplicity-(life is simple, people are not)

Life is crazy.  Life is stressful, right? Wrong. In fact life itself is quite simple, it's us a people who make things difficult. We live beyond our means, we inundate ourselves with useless information, we procrastinate on everything from paying bills to getting a haircut. Yes, I said a haircut and no it's on the same level as say being stranded on the side of the road but it is a stressor. Think about it, every day that you don't call and make an appointment, is one more day that you're thinking ah I need to get a haircut. A waste of energy and thought space when really all it takes is a simple phone call, appointment made and off the to-do list but better yet of your mind. The "big" things like a flat tire, stay at the forefront but it's the little things like that haircut I just mentioned, that add up, that build up and drain our energy and make those "big" things and life in general even more difficult to handle.

Vacation. That's a nice word isn't it. Everyone gets excited when they hear it. I don't know about you but I feel like a kid at Christmas when I'm planning a vacation and by planning I mean choosing a location. After that it's a one-way ticket to stress town. Travel dates have to be chosen, but wait let's check the calendar first. Then there's the question of how will you get there? What's the most beneficial time-wise? What's the most cost effective? Oh and where are you going to stay? Whats the best deal? Whats the best location? Oh and does it have a pool? Ah finally the reservations have been made, you're home free right? Wrong again. Now you have to decide right down to the last minute what you're going to do when you get there and man are you disappointed when you don't see and do everything on the list because you wanted to make the most out this vacation. Once, the questions started being asked, the fun, the relaxation, the vacation ended. Yup right then and there because like we do with everything else in life we made it complicated.  Planning ahead is one thing, a little preparation can save us a whole lot of headaches but theres a difference between planning and over-analyzing or even micro-managing a situation. WE make life crazy. WE stress ourselves out. WE are the problem but with a little healthy preparation, life can be much simpler and we can be much happier.

Stay tuned for tips and ideas on what I like to call Preparation meet Simplicity.

What's Left Behind?

Recently, and by recently I mean about 20 minutes ago, the thought passed through my mind that my time here could be over in the next 5 minutes, the next 5 years or maybe I'll stick around and see the next 50. It occurred to me how lovely that would be to see and experience that much life.  I think about all the things that my grandmother was apart of, the lives that she touched, the moments that she witnessed and the feelings that she felt along the way.  We're living longer now than so many generations before us did but we're doing so much less with our time.  Ours it seems, is spent on things, and less on people. We fill our lives and our time with more wants and less needs.   I wonder, at times, how much better off we would be if we decided to own less and have more.  More time with family, more memories with friends, more willingness to give to those that are simply grateful to make it to the next day.

Every life has the ability to be amazing and either through simple existence or with a little added effort, every life has the ability to touch and change someone else's in an extraordinary way.  Every soul, no matter how many years it has attached to it will leave behind something worthwhile as long as we focus on one another.

What we do for each other is what truly stands the test of time...we are our legacy.

~KG

Give it a Rest Already!

Recent conversations with friends of mine have brought me to the conclusion that we need to give ourselves a break. On a daily basis it seems, we break ourselves down and pick ourselves apart, for what I'm not quite sure.

It is human nature to judge and criticize but I tend to believe that with a little time and effort that criticism can be turned into motivation and that judgement can be replaced with encouragement. Encouragement and motivation for yourself, to reach your goals and to push past your boundaries.

Life is at times difficult and completely unpredictable. However, if you let every little "flaw" slow you down and change the view that you have of yourself, you're never going to get to where you should be and where you should be, where we all should be is moving forward through this beautiful struggle that is our life.

Glass Walls

That expression "You can't see the forest for the trees" comes to mind when I start to think about things before.  My life, and who I was before. "You can't see the forest for the trees". I'd like to say that's how it was. I'd like to say that I didn't see it happening, that I was unable to see the slow collapse of my own life, but I did. I did see it, I just didn't know how to stop it. The thing that had been my comfort, my escape, my protection from the real world had in one fell swoop thrown me off the edge with no safety net and it hurt like hell when I hit the bottom. I read somewhere that you don't appreciate what you have until its taken away. I, thankfully, didn't have everything taken away. I did however have it all slip far enough away that I almost couldn't reach it so I feel like I can say I understand that expression now and I wholeheartedly agree. To say that I was irresponsible would be an understatement. However, the real issue here is how ungrateful I was when I made the decision that brought me to the place that no one wants to go to, a place where I was grasping for everything that I loved and praying that I'd be able to hold on. It became very apparent that I needed to remove myself from what I had considered my comfort zone. Once outside of it though, I found myself feeling lost and a bit confused.  I didn't quite know where I belonged or who I was supposed to be. This, however was temporary and as it turns out the thing that gave me a sense of belonging, a sense of security, my identity, was in fact, the one thing that was threatening to take it all away. Once it was gone it took some time to fully see, but there I was. There I was, and when I looked around, there were the people that I cared about. Apparently they'd been there the whole time, telling me the harsh truths but I couldn't hear it, waiting for me to grab their hand but I couldn't reach it, and loving me unconditionally but I couldn't feel it. I couldn't feel any of it until I stepped outside of the glass walls.

Waiting for what?

I usually only end my posts with a quote but I'm going to start with one as well. 

"Stop waiting for Friday, for summer, for someone to fall in love with you, for life.  Happiness is achieved when you stop waiting for it and make the most of the moment you're in now."

After reading that it got me thinking and here's what I think.  We wait for the weekend.  We wait for the summer.  We wait until we fall in love or until we are more financially stable.  It seems like we are always waiting for something to make us happy.  Waiting for a someone to come into or something to happen in our lives before we allow ourselves to be happy.  Well, while we are waiting on all of these things, for these moments to occur, time goes on. The minutes, hours and days go by.  While we are waiting, life is happening and little moments of happiness are being overlooked and opportunities are being missed.

In the fast paced, let me check my schedule, I don't have time world that we live in, we crave and search for happiness when in reality we already have it.  Our focus is placed on so many different things at any given moment that we don't recognize the happiness of and in those moments.  When we laugh at a co-workers joke, happiness.  When we get a text or a phone call from someone and it brings a smile to our face, happiness.  When we take a moment to step outside on a nice day, to curl up with a good book or to simply sit and do nothing, there's happiness there.  It's not always the grand gestures, award winning moments or invitation worthy events that bring us our joy.  More often than not it's the simplest of things that mean the most and feel the greatest yet we tend to overlook them and focus on bigger things.  The big things are not the most important part of the bigger picture, it's the little things that mean the most in our lives. 

“Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.”~ Robert Brault   ~KG

Table for 1?

Growing up I had a clear picture of my future.  My milestones were marked by nothing more than age with the most important, marriage, being hit by age 25. Now I was engaged at 21 so I was well on my way to hitting my mark, needless to say that didn't work out but I didn't lose hope.  Of course this changed when I hit 25 and I realized that I was far from where I thought I would be in regards to life AND relationship status.  When my 25th rolled around, I had been dating my then boyfriend for all of a month and half.  Leading up to the birthday I was fine but on the day itself, I was a wreck.  A wreck that my new boyfriend had to see, tears and all.  He being only six months younger, was in the same boat but unlike me, he didn't think his was sinking.  As we sat at Olive Garden that night I made a valiant attempt to enjoy the nice dinner and evening that he had so sweetly planned but in the back of my mind and in a bit of our conversation my disappointment and fear was there, rearing it's ugly head and it had no intention of leaving.  He very sweetly tried to reassure me that 25 wasn't old and that everything was going to work out the way that it was supposed to but I wasn't hearing it.  Happy birthday to me!  My birthday passed and surprisingly he didn't run for the hills.  Instead, he did the complete opposite and we ended up staying together quite awhile.  Of course being together for as long as we were there was the inevitable talk of marriage but despite my birthday induced emotional breakdown not once in our relationship did I feel the need to run to the altar, not because I didn't want to marry him, but because I didn't feel the need to rush it.  This ended up being a great decision since we eventually grew apart and finally split two and half years later.  After that it was single fun time.  I wasn't tied down anymore and I didn't want to be, at least not for awhile.  I had started a new job earlier that year and my focus was no longer on him and us but on me and my life. I'd had what you might call a change of heart, no more like I had found the brake pedal and was slowing my roll to the altar.

Through the years since then I've been to and been apart of many bridal showers, weddings, baby showers and kids birthdays.  I've never been one to get upset or be all woe is me when a friend announces their engagement, and when I get an invitation in the mail for baby shower or child's birthday, I'm not throwing a pity party before heading to their party.  I will admit there's been a few instances, more so in my 20's, that I asked myself when was it going to be me but for the most part I've had a genuine feeling of happiness and excitement for them and their joyous occasions. 

Now being 32 and for the most part single since my 25th birthday boyfriend and I broke up almost 5 years ago, I'm even less in the I need to get married mindset.  I am perfectly fine alone. I have a good job, a nice home and the best friends and family a person could ask for.  This is not to say that I don't want a boyfriend, because I do, I have the online dating accounts to prove it, but I'm not in a rush to settle down with someone that I'd simply be settling for.  I recently read in Cosmo, that marriage has never happened this late or been this infrequent in the history of the country.  The article also said that women are more inclined to wait to get married after they get the rest of their life in order.  This tells me that I am not alone in my unmarried status or in my reasoning for being so.  I realize that most people are already married off or are on their way, I have the memories, photos and invitations to prove it, but there are still people like me that haven't made their way to that place yet.  The statement to each his own comes to mind when thinking about or discussing this topic.  To each his own, well his or her own. 

What it comes down to it being single isn't a bad thing.  Whether you're young and dumb at 21, simply misguided at 25 or finding your own way at 32, there is no right time to settle down. Find yourself before you worry about finding someone else and remember that it's not about the when, it's about the who. 

"We don’t need to rush things, if something’s bound to happen, it will happen…in the RIGHT time with the RIGHT person and with the BEST REASON"~unknown



~KG