Ever feel you are being held back, anxious but did not know why?
With a sense of urgency caused by the crack of a starter’s gun at a sporting event but your arms, legs don’t move? Good. You are learning to relax, sit out a few of life’s races. Or your kids just grew up and are out on their own.
Life is not a race.
Not a buffet with everything under the glass sneeze guard having to be sampled. Heaped tittering on the sliding cafeteria tray like John Belushi’s Bluto in Animal House. Everything in life does not have to be approached like it’s life and death important either when you learn to let go, ease back and just enjoy the ride.
Sometimes the rush and hurry is because of agendas others have for your life. Parents, spouses, bosses, churches, kids. Expectatations to do this, don’t do that. But why not salt and pepper a few of your own like Frank’s song about a little of it being “my way”. Especially after your kid’s that got your best growing up are up and out of the nest.
At a graveside funeral service yesterday, mourners, friends and family of the deceased came together to pay their respects.
To share and review the life of the departed. With outdoor stories about the personal experiences shared without a script. From the heart. How the one being honored touched the life of those standing around the grave site in the blustery cold wind. Being warmed inside by the spirit of that person.
Funerals are healthy, should not be avoided. Make a person think of their own life as they hear about the journey of the dead before they left Earth. As you listen to the honor guard’s last lone blast on the trumpet. Watch the two unfold, refold the stars and stripes. And on bended knee with the utmost respect, present that red, white and blue triangle to the greiving family. To begin the healing. To attempt to fill the big void, gap the loss of the loved one creates when they die. And loved ones begin to realize how much they depended on that individual but did not really know the extent until they are gone.
Ask any one with a bucket list or when they near the end about how they lived their life. Most share the joys of what was done right. But many will have regrets about spending so much time just trying to measure up. And meet the expectations of others around them. Coming up short in adding some color, seasoning to that life because of so much effort trying to please others. Happiness from outside yourself comes and goes. Joy developed inside you remains, radiates and sustains you through thick or thin.
Take some of those hour glass shifting sands for yourself to produce some inner joy.
It is not selfish if the bulk of your life is as a good and faithful servant to others. Your own personal enjoyment, enrichment, what you enjoy doing is also what defines your life. Adds greater deeper meaning.
When family, especially your own kids are a priority in your life, the obligation and privledge to raise them provides lots of opportunities for fun. Because kids are masters at it. Especially in the younger years when their life is kept simple. Kids get you involved in their sports, schools, church activities. Cause bleacher seat introductions to other family oriented parents. Stimulate you to not miss church or to slack off in areas you are spurred on to work harder because of them. And the importance to make sure they are prepared for the wild blue yonder with practicing what you preach.
When you take vacation trips with your kids, those family outings are seen through their eyes. Not just your own peepers. Kids in a good way cause the focus to be on the importance to get them raised right. Not just taking care of your own needs. Being responsible, considerate of others and giving something back all part of shaping a child. To give them a worthwhile purpose, skills and a healthy outlook to enjoy and impart with their kids some day. As the circle continues.
When you spend time alone, read a lot after the kids are out on their own, time to pull back, think about life happens easily.
You are freed up of the running a household with a neon glowing “no vacancy” sign out front and all that good parenting demands. A home becomes just a house again. And you have some frank discussions with the guy in the mirror you brush teeth, run a comb through your hair with each morning. About now what.
Like the funeral experience which is like studying the life of others reading biographies to shape your own, clarity happens. Like the Johnny Nash or Jimmy Cliff remake song point out about hope, faith, promise. Options, choices are revealed for decisions you used to make out of consideration sharing with a mate or family considerations. But now on your own with the take away that it is your life to lead.
If many people feel they lived their life jammed packed with meeting the expectations of others but not many of their own, there is a corner to turn up ahead.
A sudden spacious empty nest can mean its time to have lattitude to charter your own brightly colored kayak. Grab a paddle. Find someone in time to paddle with beside you. But for now just enjoy catching your breath. Cranking your head around to survey the surroundings. To consider the options that become crystal in the quiet, new sensation of being alone. Listening for daily directional cues in Maine. Get on your knees and work more in your private personal spiritual garden.
Slow Down, You Can Not Help But Relax In Maine.
Maine, a special place where you can still hear yourself think.
Unless you are hard of hearing and thought yesterday’s Me In Maine blog post was about Las Vegas. It was not, but about Gulf Hagas, the “Grand Canyon of Maine”. The four seasons solitude so easy to tap in to in Maine is the best place for the many life reviews along the way. To see what needs tweaking, loosening, tightening.
Make Maine your first priority for the unspoiled, uncrowded, safe surroundings. To not lead your entire life out of just a sense of duty. But one out of love for what is inside you ready to blossom. To grow stronger in faith that feeds your passion, hunger, thirst and helps you discover what has been missing. You and I have lots of value, talent, worth that we need to re-discover. That sometimes others miss altogther because of your unwillingness to open up and trust. Or just they did not take the time because they were too busy too. Make, take the time to open up. It’s okay to be needy, we all are.
Too often others can remind you of where you come up short. And you start to believe them when they say there is nothing about you that they like. It is up to you to see where you do get it right for self confidence, self esteem. Risk living your own life with confidence. Love every one, see every thing in it with hope, faith and understanding anyway. It is not conditional, it should be an agape type of love without strings or demands in return.
I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573
info@mooersrealty.com