hopefully something rhetorical

(photo borrowed from Brene)

For the last few days, I have been working on a post with the original title up there.  I had my dilemma all laid out.  I explained that I am between a place of should and want in my life, and I feel run over by my to do list of what I should be doing.  Right now, I feel drawn towards my want to move to more creative endeavors, and I am having trouble focusing on the shoulds.  I outlined all the reasons I love my job and some of the reasons that make it hard.  And, in the language of the whole post I talked about the separation between my creative life and my academic one.

And, then I opened Brene’s post from a few days ago.  Brene’s blog is one of the blogs that I read very slowly.  With most blogs, I just devour new posts, trying to take in as much information as possible, but with Brene’s, I take my time.  She has amazing things to say, and I feel a connection to her for some reason.  But, when I opened this last post, that connection was made even clearer.  The image above is of a statue on the University of Houston campus, where Brene works.  The statue is called “Sandy in a Box.”  This is why the title of this post has a subtitle.

Reading through her post, I realize that I am trying to place all the areas of my life into little boxes (yes, the song is playing through my head too): this project focuses on diversity issues, in this one I am going to work on green issues, here I am going to be a teacher, here I am going to be creative, here is where I am going to spend time with my friends and family, and this is where I am going to be an Army wife that knows about deployments and acronyms (albeit a box I haven’t found myself in lately, and I am little afraid of returning to). And, like Brene, I think I am ready to start stepping outside of these boxes, and I have found it to be an uncomfortable process.

I really don’t know why I thought living my life in this compartmentalized way was going to work.  It is like trying to have completely separate groups of friends.  There are times when you want to pull everyone together.  So, instead of focusing on the different hats I am supposed to be wearing in each scenario, I am going to acknowledge the pull I feel between want and should.  I also have to acknowledge that being in this position is a dangerous spot for me because it has a tendency to stop productivity on all things.  This is because when I move towards doing something I want to do, I feel bad that I am not working on my shoulds and vice versa.  And, as a result of all of this, I am turning my wants into requirements (ie: making Christmas presents for everyone) in order to give myself permission to do what I want in the first place.

The bottom line is I have to make some decisions about my time and intentions related to what I want to do and what my perception is about what I should be doing.  I have to pay more attention to the work and time I do that fulfills me.

A place to start:

1. It is time for me to start really practicing Christine Kane’s philosophy about if is not an automatic yes, then it is a no!  The things I am working on are either a part of my whole life or they aren’t.  And, if they aren’t, then I need to cut my ties with them.
2. I plan to honor the commitments I already have but take more time to think about those I accept or seek out after this point.  Those who know me will know that this is not my typical MO.  I love to help people, and I love to get involved, but I need to be better about managing my involvement.
3. As a creative person, I need to believe creativity will follow me into all the areas of my life if I follow my last decision.  And, it is okay for me to be creative.  It is what makes me a good teacher and a hard worker.  And, my creativity allows me a different view of the world than everyone else.
4. I need to understand that my view of the world is not going to be accepted by everyone.  After all, the reason I have a different view than others is because theirs doesn’t resonate with me. I want to try to start using the appropriate language when these differences occur.  It isn’t always personal.  Those that I have conflict with just believe in their view point as strongly as I believe in mine.

This whole process makes me think a lot about Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken.”   I have taught this several times to my students.  I think it is a great poem to use with students that don’t have experience with poetry because most of them feel like they understand what Frost is saying, and the message resonates for them.  Upon the first reading, students always think that Frost is celebrating the choice he made to take a particular path.  But, in actuality, it is more likely that the poem wasn’t meant to talk about the benefit of one choice over the other.  Instead, Frost is talking about the inevitability of the choices you have to make.

I think this poem can really be thought of as a statement about just living your life to see how things turn out. So, while I am at this crossroads between want and should, I get to decide if those are two divergent paths, solely moving away from each other.  In this model, I am always missing out on something, and I will likely always be at the standstill I am at right now.

I would like to have a more circular approach to my life, where moving towards something is not moving away from something else, but rather, sneaking up on it from behind!  I think that’s the only true way for me to break out of my boxes and live one complete, fulfilling life.