Struggling. Lost. All for a reason?

Struggle.
This seems to be something that comes with life. A part of it, perhaps.

Lost.
Is how I feel at the moment. Never knowing if my decisions are correct, if I am doing what I should, acting as expected.

Is it for a reason? Or am I uselessly struggling?

We seem to have the same arguments over and over again.
Me, nagging nagging nagging about inappropriate relationships with women.
Him, still seemingly living in secret, never truly wanting to reveal any truths about his actions.
Me, living in suspicion of his every move online.
Him, tiring of my suspicions.

We argue more and more and the divide in our values grows greater.
You believe in things that I don't.
I believe in things you cannot find rationale in.

We let our differences and our lack of trust get under our skin. Separate us. Greaten the divide rather than bridge it.

What is a marriage without trust?
What is a marriage without commitment?
What is a marriage without compromise?
What is a marriage without kind words, compassion, and empathy?

We fight about me not speaking my mind. We fight when I actually speak my mind because you didn't like how I did it or what I had to say. We fight about how to raise our daughter. We fight because I don't have opinions about how to raise our daughter. We fight because it's too cold. We fight about how to spend our money... We fight.

I resent our fights. You think our fights are productive, when in reality, they never are, because you always want me to be the one who changes and see no flaws in your own ways.

How is this balance? How is this compromise?
How is this a life anyone would want to live?
How do you know when things can no longer be fixed?
How do you know when to throw in the towel and call it quits?

I am struggling. I am lost.

The feeling of mediocrity

Mediocre...
A strong word.
A word that can define someone.
Define their life.

It signals an average individual. Someone who will live their life fairly unaccomplished. Having touched the few individuals around them, but leaving a minimal mark outside of that realm.

I fear being mediocre, and thus strive not to be.
Yet, at the same time I fear that I am, actually, mediocre.

I am average at most everything I attempt.
I am not a natural at everything I try, like some.

I must work for what I want, yet I find myself blocked by the struggle of becoming great.
My fear of being mediocre keeps me from trying (ironic, right?).

I have a desire to write, but I am an average writer.
I have a desire to teach, but I am an average teacher.
I have a desire to run a business, but I am average at that as well.
I am a mother, and am a fairly average one.

I lack passion, pizzazz... I am lackluster in my life.

Unsure about why I am lacking, I am, for the time being, stuck in a bewildered state about my inability to move past my own mediocrity to achieve greatness....

Parallel lives

It baffles me, how easy it is to pick up, move, and feel as if nothing has changed; yet everything has changed.

People I have known all my life, distant physically, yet never far away.

How we miss out on life events of those we love, are saddened by that loss, but seem to accept that loss for personal gains.

I am a wanderer. In and out of the lives of those who matter most to me. Always seeking the next joyride.

At times I am ambivalent.
At times I relish in my independent successes.
At times the gap causes me to silently suffer.
At times the grass is greener and I wish for the have nots in my life.

This emotional hurdle can be rigorous to jump over; to keep running the race.

But what is a wanderer to do?
We are doomed to seesaw between worlds. Between loves.
Leading parallel lives in alternate universes on the same planet.

Positive Choices

On our way home today we drove by a high school reader board that read "congrats class of 2011, make positive choices".

I found this selection of works to be simple, very subjective, and yet, poignant. It made me reflect on the choices I've made since high school and think about how many of them have been positive. I know, the term positive is a very subject term and can be taken in many ways: for whom were my choices positive; was the choice positive even if the outcomes were negative but I learned a lesson; blah blah blah etc etc. You get the point.

How many of us can make positive decisions all of the time? If our answer was 0 percent, then you are correct! Also, a decision I view as positive may seem negative to you, or in hindsight, may also seem negative to me...

Each of our lives is nothing more than a series of microsecond decisions and repercussions from those decisions. I choose to back up and let some kid cross the road and thus roll in to the car behind me (yes, true story, and my only accident in 12 years of driving). Overall, I feel I have made good decisions during my time here in this world. I think about the effects my actions will have on others prior to acting (many times to the point of fault), and work with the information at hand to make the most educated decision possible for myself every minute of every day. I am sure not everyone is as insanely analytic about their personal lives as I am, but I am sure that you all have your own unconscious personal decision-making process.

How many decisions do you make every day and where might you be if you had made a different choice? Was your decision a positive one? Would your other decision have been negative since the decision you made was positive? It's a bit like those Choose Your Own Adventure books from when I was a kid, but this is real life, people!

So, back to what instigated this conversation, the highs school reader board. Rather than encouraging people to make positive decisions, or even worse, to make "good" decision, how about encouraging people to make the best decisions they can for themselves at the moment they are making the decision?

I guess that would be tough to fit on a reader board though...

True Love

No one else will ever know the strength of my love for you. 

After all, you're the only one who knows what my heart sounds like from the inside.

Today's Inspirations

Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared. - Lord Buddha

 

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. - Zen Proverb

 

The value of life does not depend upon the place we occupy. It depends upon the way we occupy that place. -- St. Thérèse de Lisieux

We people of the world need to find ways to get to know one another - for then we will recognize that our likenesses are so much grater than our differences, however great our differences may seem. Every cell, every human being, is of equal importance and has work to do in this world - Peace Pilgrim

 

Alone?

I am surrounded by many.
Yet feel alone.
It's an ironic feeling.
Being in a room filled with others, yet, emotionally isolated.
Love, friendship, companionship - much of it comes from inside rather than the outside.
Internal, not external.
We have to love ourselves before others will love us.
We have to be our own friend before others will befriend us.
We have to feel togetherness, even if we are physically isolated.
Then, and only then, will we find our lifelong companion.
Our self.
And then, and only then, will we never be alone.