As I sit outside with my early morning coffee reading our Wednesday morning “food section” of the paper, I realize that I used to buy and devour foodie magazines on a regular basis. I also remember avidly pulling out new recipes to try and believe or not… followed through and tried them. Throwing a dinner party for friends on a moment’s notice regardless of how clean my house appeared was second nature to me.
Over this past weekend, I visited another memory that has become foreign to me; I pulled out my dusty mountain bike. Riding this bike was a passion of mine for years….in fact, at one time I was on that bike more than I was on my own two feet. The first question my own mother would ask when calling was “How many miles did you ride this weekend?”
Somehow, when I left my steady paycheck in Corporate America five years ago, I also left behind many of my personal passions that fed me on important levels. Cooking and biking are only two examples of the many activities I once enjoyed and put on pause.
This morning I’ve started to wonder, how much of myself have I given up in order to focus on making a living?
Back in the corporate world, I figured that with a steady paycheck coming in monthly, I could experience the luxury of really enjoying my life during my down times. I never felt guilty about grabbing a fashion magazine and a cup of tea for a few minutes between sales calls or shutting the phone off to business after 6. Weekends were for adventure. Friday night meant packing the car and taking off to some corner of the state in which I live. I managed to squeeze in laundry and cleaning my home during the week, but weekends……weekends were for fun!
Yet, now that I’m self employed, some weird belief of “work, work work” has come over me. All work and no play has made me a dull girl. I may not be busy actually working all day, but in my head…I should be, so no playtime for me!
This couldn’t be farther from who I really am and what I really believe. How did I get so far off track and down the road I watched my parents walk? Am I really walking in the shoes of the generation before me that I swore I’d never walk?
For me, my inner private world has always been rich. But that inner world has grown vanilla for me over the last 5 years. And if I’m honest with myself, I’ve let that affect me as a person. I’m not as happy as I used to be and not as patient with life’s stresses. I’m not as inspired. Part of me isn’t being fed and is slowly withering.
How much of our passions do we slowly let leak away as life takes over?
How much of ourselves do we give away as life’s demands get louder? Maybe it’s not the self employment excuse for you. Maybe it’s a baby, children, marriage, new job, promotion or life change. The “what” doesn’t really matter; what does matter is recognizing that some part of yourself is gone.
Maybe this is what the real aging process is a slow withering of our passions. Life gets busier as we mature, and if we’re not careful, the passionate colorful 20-something inside of us slowly fades away.
I’ve never believed that the harder you work the more money you make. I made far more money when my life was balanced, and I was truly fed on many levels. As I sit here writing this morning, I realize that when my personal tank is on full, my engine runs at capacity and I’m better at everything I do….including work.
Let’s commit to doing something everyday this week that feeds us on levels we used to love. Let’s remember what we loved in our earlier years and bring some version of that back to the here and now. No, I’m not ready to take my mountain bike up the single track of Mount Evans like I used to…..but I can take it out for an hour and enjoy the afterglow of having some dirt on my feet and sunshine on my arms.
Remember, scraped knees aren’t just for kids! They are battle wounds that show you’re living life to it’s fullest! 🙂
This is the flavoring that makes our life tasty. I know this and you know this… We’re not meant to be vanilla, we’re meant to be multi-flavored!
Will we do it? I hope so.
xo
Pepper photo courtesy of Carlos Porto at freedigitalphotos.net
"Maybe this is what the real aging process is……a slow withering of our passions."
No offense, but *F* that.
I had the work, work, work problem at various times too. Now I have to block out the "fun" time on my calendar, but when I push it off, I'm doing myself a disservice. The weird thing is that my business is usually more successful when I'm out playing, meeting fun people, and engaging in life. Part of successful self-employment is re-training your mind to have fun in a new way AND re-training your mind about work being not fun.
Wow, that's a lot of double negatives. Thanks for the good post and reminder.
YES! Love it!! Thank you for reading Osman and thank you for commenting.
Your comments today really are speaking to me. I am 50 and my tank has been so low that I have been sputtering along on fumes for years. I have known that I need to make changes for a long time. Today I looked in the paper and saw an opportunity to really change things. And you know what??? I'm going to make the call today. This would be a major life change and it would totally shake up the boring daily ho hum but so what. I'm going to do it. Thanks for your timely post. Now, go do something fun!!
Di, I just saw your comment, first off…way to go!! Secondly, thank you for sharing. Life moves quickly and it's suprising sometimes to see that we've been on pause rather than play! 🙂
xo
Eek! You are me! Up until I broke my arm a year ago, I was definitely "50-something pushing 30-something" and was working on riding my bicycle 30 – 40 miles several times a week. During this "down" time I've been reflecting on "woe is me, look what I've lost" but now, I'm going to kick it into high gear and NEVER look back until I'm in the grave. Life is for living and bodies are for moving!
YES!!!!!
Good luck on your recovery anonymous!
xo