Dear Abby, - Not Fair!

Dear Abby,

    I’m fifty-one years old & wondering what’s become of my life. I am always tired & feel paunchy and well…old. My teenagers hate me & my husband doesn’t pull his weight around the house. I don’t want to work anymore (I really want to win the lottery – but I always forget to play). I drive to work and see people walking on the nearby track & wonder how is it they don’t have jobs or need to grocery shop or run errands all day long for their families – not fair! I see smoke coming out of chimneys & just know that there’s someone enjoying their morning coffee or tea next to a wonderful fire. It’s not even the weekend – so not fair! When did all this happen & what can I do? – Signed, Disgruntled.

Dear Disgruntled,

This is so common (practically epidemic from what I hear) among your age group. First realize you are not alone in this. Those ‘lucky’ people you see walking or having a Monday morning fire have already figured some things out. Most importantly, the way your life plays out is the direct result of your thoughts & beliefs.

So please:

~ Take time for yourself no matter how busy you are. You are the most important person in your family’s life & you need to be happy & healthy in order for any harmony to occur. Remember the airline’s directions when those oxygen masks come down – the adult’s breath first so they can properly take care of the kids & elderly.

~ Feel gratitude for things in your life already in place. Write three different gratitudes down each day in a journal & start to feel your attitude changing. Such as, today I am grateful for my GWA friends, for the smell of my hyacinth bulbs that I forced making my house smell amazing, the smell of a fire going outside that someone else is having today.

~ Start to daydream! Think of small, medium & large ‘bucket list’ items you’d like for yourself. These can only come from you & your imagination & can never become real until you imagine them. “We’re never given a dream without the power to make it come true.” ~Richard Bach

~ Take some risks. We all start out as risk-takers as children & then begin more & more to play it safe. “Life is an ongoing process of choosing between safety (out of fear) and risk (for growth). Make the growth choice a dozen times a day.” ~Abraham Maslow

Finally Digruntled, begin to read some wonderful books to help you with this process. I can’t recommend enough the books below.

* Thanks to Sarah Ban Breathnach (Simple Abundance, Romancing the Ordinary) & M K Mueller (8 to Great) for their wonderful self-help words of wisdom.