Someone Broke My Rose Colored Glasses.......

As far as rose colored glasses go, I think I kept mine on far longer than was necessarily healthy.  I have always wanted to see the good in everyone and still look for that silver lining.   There are times when the rose colored glasses get in your way --sometimes we need to see the truth no matter how ugly it is.
I have learned a lot this past week about perceptions.  My perceptions, the perceptions of those around me and even those of complete strangers.  I have stepped outside of my safe little box and tuned in to the world around me.

Once upon a time I believed that love, friendship and kindness could conquer all.  I hid behind a smile that I plastered on no matter how grim I felt inside.  If I kept up a positive front, laughed when I wanted to cry and didn't upset the apple cart, then things would be okay.   I learned early to sweep unpleasant things under the carpet and how to sugar coat things so that no one was ever overly offended.  The thought of offending anyone, hurting someones feelings or having someone mad at me was just too much.  I wanted to world to love me and to be able to help people to find happiness in any circumstance.

Cruel words, being snubbed and having people genuinely not like me has always hurt.  I take things personally, never feel good enough and try hard to fix things that I may never be able to fix.  My energies are spent on things that probably don't really matter in the long run.   There will always be people who don't like me, there will always be those who snub me and people will be cruel whether they intend to or not.  Not everything is about me.

I can still be kind, I can still laugh and I can still look for the good.  I just have to remember that I won't always find it.  I need to help where I can and admit when something is bigger than I am.  It is okay to let go, to walk away and to choose a healthier path for myself.  I have been blessed with good friends who all fill different needs.  There are those who make me laugh, those who let me vent, those who are wise and share their wisdom with me and those who will be there no matter what.  Many of my friends are all of those things.  That is the kind of friend that I strive to be as well.

I have had to ask myself if my need to help others is directly related to my ego.  Egos can get in the way sometime and being aware of what is driven by love and what is driven by ego is an important lesson.  Helping others is ingrained in me.  It is part of who I am.  I can see where at times it becomes ego.  Those would be the times when I have done everything possible and don't want to admit defeat because that would make me feel or look bad.  It isn't about me.  Helping others is about them.  When it becomes about me, that is when I know that the ego is involved.

As usual I am ranting away with no direction and no real thought process.  I have just been learning lesson after lesson this year and sometimes need to just write it out in order to make sense of it all.  I am learning who I am, what I need to work on and hopefully I will find which direction I want to go.  I had always thought that by this point in my life that direction would be obvious.  I never realized that I would be 47 years old, feel 19 half of the time and still wonder what it is that I really want from life.  I want to be happy, to help others, to love and be loved and to make enough money to get by.  I don't need to be rich.  I would like to be out of debt.  I would like to be able to travel now and then.  I have thought about being a life coach or counselor of sorts.  I would like to help people rediscover their dreams, reinvent themselves as the people they want to be and to rewrite their story to include a happy ending.  In order to achieve that I need to be able to do it with myself first.

Life is always giving us lessons, we are constantly changing and growing.  Some of us get caught in the current and circle around making the same choices over and over.  When I look at jobs I seem to go right back to education assistant or exchange student positions.  That is what I have done and that is where my comfort level is.  I have learned a lot from those positions, but I want to expand.  I want to do something new.  That means stepping out of the comfort zone, letting go of fears, not letting my ego guide me and forgetting the perceptions I have about myself.  I am the one who is holding myself back.  There are so many possibilities.  I always think my ideas are too big, my dreams unrealistic and that I am getting to old.  I need to refocus, leave the rose colored glasses behind and look to the future.   If I need to write a blog every few days to give myself direction, so be it.  I will type away whatever thoughts come to mind and I will eventually figure it out.