just do it (and other things that are easy to say and hard to do)

A few years ago, my then-husband and I had some major changes going on in our lives. We were living apart while he works at his new job in San Francisco and house hunted, while I had packed up our house here in San Diego (except what I need to work and the bare essentials of living), and have given away half our belongings. We knew that in the Bay area any house we get will be substantially smaller than what we have now.

Sometimes when you are a "positive thinker", you fall into the habit of handing out greeting card advice (to ourselves and others) like "Just Do It" without a full understanding of what "doing it" will entail. We tell people to go for their dreams without following up with the kind of support they need. Sometimes "just doing it" means giving up half your possessions, moving hundreds of miles, being separated from friends and family, and turning your world upside down.

One of my lesser qualities as a human is that I really don't like things to be "up in the air" and unresolved. This week I sat down and made a list of all of my fears and I realized that every single one of them boils down to one thing - I don't like to be out of control. Okay, so most people probably don't like to be out of control, but I really seem to make an art out of it. I could be the poster child for Control Freaks Anonymous at this point.

As I mention on the website, I have a very powerful belief that has helped to shape my life. That is, if I can learn from an experience, I have succeeded. In an effort to quell the rising panic that resulted from this recent change, I decided to try to figure out how I could learn from the experience of being apart from Ken, not knowing when I will be moving, etc. I thought this would help me feel more "in control" of the experience. (Ha ha ha!)

As an aside, I should also mention that I am concurrently trying to conquer grace. That is, to understand and live my life with poise and grace. I realized that all my fledgling overtures at this have flown out the window since Ken left for San Francisco, and that made me realize that if I truly wanted to live my life with grace, I was going to have to learn to coexist peacefully with the unknown.

I dutifully wrote all of this down in my journal. Then I didn't write in my journal for a week. Sometimes denial is seriously underrated.

As God often does (or whatever higher power you may believe in), about that time I was given a book that would shape my thoughts on the matter. In Creating a Charmed Life, author Victoria Moran wrote, "The ability to coexist with the unresolved has immense practical value. Without it, we can function at our best only when everything in perfect (in other words, never). Even solvable problems seldom have instant answers. Until these problems are worked through, we share space with them."

At the moment I read that, I felt an intense dislike for Ms. Moran.

Oh, all right. It passed. She is right. Life isn't perfect, and coming to terms with moments in which things are out of our hands (in a big way!) is very practical. But to be honest, I didn't feel like "just doing it." I felt like going back to bed with a romance novel and a pint of cookies and cream ice cream.

I went back to my journal and began to write out my feelings. One thing I realized is that having a situation that you can't control in your life is not the same as being out of control of your life. I control thousands of decisions each day, because one issue is unresolved, it does not mean that everything is unresolved.

I called Ken that night and we made a list of all the things that were going right in our lives. As often is the case, Ken had been thinking along the same lines that I had and the first thing he said to me was "As I was walking back to the hotel tonight I saw three homeless men sitting on the sidewalk. All I could think was, these men have no place to live, no job, no money - all I have to worry about is which 2 bedroom house I want to rent." Perspective is a wonderful thing. It is easy to get caught up in a problem and think that everything is bad.

The final thing that I remembered as I worked through this is one of the most important things I know about life - that is a journey. As someone who loves to travel, I know that some of my best memories came at the moments I was lost, took a wrong turn, or changed my plan at the last minute to impulsively try something unexpected. There is joy in being out of control and dealing with the situation. The difference between success and failure is often not the choices we make, but rather the way that we respond to the things we didn't choose to deal with.

Would I choose this path again if I knew what I knew today? Yes, absolutely. Even with the minor irritations, the opportunity and potential is worth the risk.

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