Saturday, January 16, 2010

2010 New Year, New Resolutions....

So as I sit after watching - yes the Confessions of an shopaholic....it got me thinking about my own spending. It seems these days that everyone is watching their dollar very carefully. That we are all re-considering the recent purchase we just made and whether or not we need that or want that.
I know for myself Ive spent 2009 hunkering down and looking for ways to stretch my dollar and ways to save a buck. This seems to be the trend whenever our economy is stressed - we take on the stress and we distribute it. It seems to be the only thing in the economy that we can count on is - stress.

When I think about when I was a kid, I realize I didn't know what stress was. I didn't know that we didn't have a ton of money and I didn't care. I didn't think the things we did to save money were odd - I didn't know any different. It was what we did and the money that we have didn't define who we were. We were a united, strong family - who just had to make our dollars work for us as we worked for them.

Somewhere along the way that all changed.....

I'm not sure really when.....I think it was being told my whole life, go to college and a get a degree, things will be simpler then. All your problems will be solved. The world is your oyster - get a pearl....
But, reality strikes and we realize that coming out of college we don't get the CEO title, the corporate jet, and that things are not handed to us. We have to work.
So the ethics of work hard kick in. The dreams of the big home, 2.5 kids, the white picket fence, dream vacations, etc....it all comes barely within our reach and we realize we just need to work a bit harder, pull more hours, go in on weekends, just work harder and it will all be ours.

At some point this dream starts to change.....we realize that not everything is a reality and maybe our destiny wasn't to be as described to us when we were young. Some of us had kids younger and the trials and tribulations of parenthood come blaring in our face. Others of us got the dream job only to find out it was a nightmare. Some of us got lost along the way and in turn - lost ourselves.......whatever it may be we didn't exactly turn out the way that was promised or the way it was supposed to be in our "dreams".

Some of us might just roll with the punches, we may try to get things accomplished anyways and make the best of what was handed out. We make lemonade with the lemons. Some of us add vodka to the lemonade and have ourselves a party. Others take the lemons and cry. And still others of us stare down the lemons and wonder...what if...........

I believe at some point, all of us, come to a point in our lives where the what if becomes stronger and stronger - and we realize that maybe we have been going down a wrong path. Maybe this path we took was what we thought...but is no longer. Maybe we were meant to do something else....but what???

This question can haunt us and frustrate us beyond our wildest dreams......or it can be the solution, the answer........


What if the answer is that we should take the journey. Maybe there is no destiny, maybe there is no exact route....maybe the point is to take the journey. To smell the roses along the way. To take a moment, take it all in, and live our lives.

Maybe 2009 taught us that being broke wasn't the worst thing that happened to us. Maybe we can take the economy, the penny pinching, the stress, and learn from it. Maybe, just maybe, it was part of our journey to bring reality, and real reality, back to our lives. Maybe we should turn off the reality on TV and start living our own.
Maybe we were supposed to be comfortable in our skin and learn to live and love with passion, rather than tons of money.

Most of us - this is not what we were told when we were young dreamers. This isn't in the plan...but maybe that is the plan.

So 2010 is my dedication to this new "plan". I'm going to try it out and see. I'm going to stop waiting for opportunities and start making them. I'm going to try new things, experience new experiences, I'm going to live life on life's terms and I'm going to enjoy myself. I'm going to try to understand what the best things in life are free and I'm going to get out there and live a life that I was mean to live.

So this blog will be dedicated to that - my journey.

I guess all that's left to say now is......Let the journey begin...........