Bobble-Heading Through Life

It worked again, those three journal pages in the early morning before anyone else, including the coffee pot, is awake.  Okay, the cat was up, but she loves the morning pages, too.  All my journals and pens have been permanently scent marked by her, not to mention the addition of jagged lines from her rubbing on the pen at inopportune times.

I had been writing and thinking about several things that had come up in the last two days, one about self-respect, the other about dreaming vs goal setting, and then bobble-heading through life  showed up and Poof! that was it.  That’s what it’s all about – whether we go through life nodding and agreeing with all that comes our way, or do we take life by the hand and say, What a great adventure!  Let’s go!

I always thought I was a good dreamer – I can while away vast amounts of time in my head, lost in thought, oblivious to others who are wondering if I am dead, asleep, boring, or what.  Nope, just thinking and trying to work that Law of Attraction, picturing the book signings, the articles in glossy magazines, even Terri Gross wanting to talk to me.  I just didn’t realize I wasn’t a very effective dreamer, and that while dreaming is good, without action, it’s like the northern lights, magic while there but then gone.   I had always wondered why, with such good ideas, such positive thoughts, that I still seemed to be in the same place.

Action!  Even the most novice director knows to say that at the beginning of filming, but I seem to have missed that part.  My father was not an action oriented man, more the let’s see if something bad happens first before we do anything, so I am awed and amazed at people who think something and then do it.  Who knew!  Action people assume action follows thought, that if they think or say they want to do something, they do it.  The dreamers  just keep on dreaming and thinking and sometimes need to be reminded that something must be done before something can happen.  Action people have lists with things checked off and at the end of the day, they’re done and I’m still thinking.  I am so envious!

Part of this, I realize, is tied with self-esteem and whether we deserve those dreams or not.  I used to think that flabby self-esteem was invisible, a nasty, hidden secret we could keep from others, but no, it’s as plain as day.  Horse’s know it, kids know it, students in class know it and they can make your day hell.  I wish I had a magic wand that would cure poor self-esteem, but just like any bad habit that is ingrained, it takes work to overcome it.  And whine, whine, whine, no one likes to work on those kinds of things.  Fun things, yes, painful things, not so much.

So this Reluctant Success has steeled herself towards action, to setting a goal and actually doing it rather than thinking about it, and creating new habits.  I still haven’t figured out why some things are so easy, they just get done with no thought, but then there are those rascally ideas, the better job, the newer car, and all of a sudden it’s oh, it’s okay, it doesn’t matter.  But honey, it does.