Yes, I know it's a shock, but I figure one a year is real progress. :-) Okay, not really. So much has gone on in the last year since my first post, so I won't even try for an update. It would just take too long anyway, and let's face it, no one would really take the time to read what would be the equivalent of those showy Christmas letters that accompany holiday cards. You know what I'm talking about - those letters that are designed to make everyone envious of the enormously productive year the sender has had, while you're reading it thinking about all the marathons you didn't run, houses you didn't close on, anniversaries you didn't celebrate with a trip to Paris, foreign languages you didn't master (hola!), Great American novels you didn't write, wonderful spouses you don't have, or kids you didn't give birth to.
I don't care how accomplished you are, there's always one of those letters that makes its way to us, and only serves to depress us. Nevermind the fact that maybe you spent your year showing up for work so you could eke out a living and pay the rent, keeping a roof over you or your family's heads. Or something equally thrilling, like being there for your friends when they need you. To me, these are huge accomplishments and should be celebrated with all the pomp and circumstance as those big 'look-how-great-we-were-this-year' letters, complete with the color picture of the whole perfect lot of them posing in Santa hats while ladling soup at the mission. Unfortunately, 'I didn't get fired, evicted, or mugged in the parking lot downtown' just doesn't look as sexy in a letter. Those foreign-language, traveling types will win that contest every time.
I really don't mean to sound bitter about the progress of others. I think it's fine, providing they were, at some previous point in their lives, jobless slackers who couldn't find two shoes that matched or manage anything more for supper than a microwave chicken pot pie.
My point is simply this: life should be celebrated, no matter how plain, boring, or mundane you think yours is. I did an interview today with Alexandra Stoddard, author of the book "Things I Want My Daughters to Know", and received not only a great interview, but a new outlook. This is a woman who's made her life both living beautifully and teaching others to do so. For the unfamiliar, she's an interior designer and author who has literally made her living and career teaching others how to put themselves in beautiful surroundings.
I know what you're thinking: well, if I could afford my own designer for that home in the Hamptons I have, I could live beautifully, too.
Yeah, okay - I've already booked her for when I have my Sullivan's Island, SC home purchased with my soon-to-win-any-day-now lottery funds. But her advice on living beautifully is more about a state of mind than a pretty living room.
My favorite chapter in this book is "Travel Heavy". In a nutshell, Alexandra encourages us to have a pet, have dinner parties, have children, collect objects because you love them, and above all, surround yourself with things that make you happy. She believes life is too short to resist mere things just because you may feel tied down to them, or because they require too much responsibility.
After reading this chapter, I realized for as much STUFF as I have, I wasn't enjoying it. I have lots of things, but have been afraid to use them and let them become a part of my everyday life. Picture frames still in boxes, candles never lit, bottles of wine never opened and shared with friends, chocolate never tasted...okay, anyone who knows me can tell that last one's a lie. But my point is: live your life. Don't be concerned with the overachievers and their advertisements of their great lives taken out in the guise of a holiday card. Do your thing - whatever that is - and travel heavy while you're doing it. Light your candles, invite your friends over for dinner, stop spending your time on unproductive things (be it relationships or routines), and LIVE.
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