Thursday's Child: What Happens When You Aren't Feeling It?

Today, I'm not feeling it. I don't have that 'get-up-and-go', and that mountain I'm suppose to move? I think it looks just fine where it is. Those places to go and people to see? They can do just fine over there without me. I'd like nothing better than to just crawl back into bed. So much for being a Thursday's Child, huh?

In times like these, I have a couple of choices.  I can go back to bed and just ignore the rest of the world. Even if I know that my income is dependent upon me being at work (say, an hourly wage worker), I still have the choice. I could weigh out the cost versus benefits to not going in and make a decision from there. Or, I can choose to push on through, despite feeling this way. The one thing I'm not going to do is to beat myself up for the way I feel. I used to push a guilt-trip on myself when I wanted to slack off or hide out.It stems from childhood.

My mother wasn't someone who held too much stock in letting us stay home sick or because we just weren't feeling school that day. She was the person who believed that if you were truly sick, you'd have a fever of 101.3 or higher, be close to death and in need of hospitalization.

I was conditioned to make myself feel bad if I didn't overachieve every day. Even when I was a stay-at-home mom with 6 kids under the age of 12, you could eat off my floors. Five loads of laundry every day, even when I sprained my ankle during a Kenpo belt test (I hopped a lot). I was Head of Neighborhood Watch for the Navy Housing Association, Parliamentarian for both the PTA board and the Housing board, and President of the Foodbank. 6 days a week at Kenpo, and my kids all were doing well in school. I felt like a failure most of the time.

I learned the hard way that success isn't measured on a moment, nor is it calculated by how much activity or work you do. It is how you feel about yourself and your relationship with the life you design. If I'm not feeling it, it won't matter how much I do, I won't be achieving anything but frustration and low self-esteem.

So, I'm taking it slowly today. I'm nurturing me. I have tasks that need completing, but they'll get done, even if not exactly in the time-frame my boss or even I wanted, initially. My experience, my life, my well-being.. those are what's most important. I'm doing life right nowadays. That's what makes me a success.

Beannú na déithe's n'aindhéithe ort !
("The blessings of the gods and the non-gods upon you".)

Thursday's child is a new series of blog posts where I examine what it means "to go far". I hope you'll join me in this exploration each week