real quick life thoughts/lessons

When I went home I was getting away from all the negative things in my life in Bellingham. I didn't have a place to live, so the obviously was a huge factor in why I left.

I'm not a perfect person in anyway, no one is. We all make mistakes, and we do things that are wrong, and selfish, and say things that we don't mean and that hurt others. Sometimes you have to just step away from it all. That's what I did by going home for over about two months.

Coming back I learned that my top priority is to take care of myself, and listen to what I want, and what I want to do. I learned that it's about pleasing myself, not those around me, which I feel is really selfish, but after leaving and finally getting peace again in my life, I also learned sometimes you have to be selfish.

A few days after I got to Bellingham, I decided to go to a little get together a co-worker had set up. Part of this was goal setting, it's something that we do at lululemon. Every few months we get to sit down and re-do all our goals. We usually start with a vision of where you see yourself later on in life, then you break it down by 10 years, five, and then one. When we met up to talk about what goals were, and how to set them, we got to pick where to start from. I decided that I wanted to start with my goals for this next year. The reason I did this was because, it feels like so much of my life has changed and I'm not really sure where I'm going to be in the next month. With all my housing issues going on, and school coming up, it's a lot to think about.

One of the ways we looked into setting new goals was by creating a circle. Within that circle you decided what things you wanted to keep in your life, and outside were the things you wanted to remove. For me, a lot of what I want to keep are things that I realized were important to me from going home; working out, not eating meat, thinking about my mental health, going to yoga, visiting family and friends, and meeting new people. These are all things that help me feel better.

At the end of our get together we all shared what our goals were, and what we want. For me, I want mainly to be happy, and to live a happy, and healthy life, whether it's in Bellingham or not. I explained to my co-workers how happy I was to be back home, and how different it felt to come back in Bellingham, almost wrong.

My biggest take away from being home I learned by talking to my co-workers. It's that you have to do what you feel is right, and what makes you happy. I talked about how I feel like all my housing arrangements falling through is a sign that I shouldn't be back in Bellingham right now, and that maybe it's for the best, that the universe is trying to tell me something.

One of them, Stella said, that the universe isn't trying to tell you anything, thats the thing. It's you knowing what it is that you want, and looking for answers and reasons to let your decisions be right, and make you feel okay about what it is you truly want to do.

They all said it sounded like I was making excuses and looking for a reason to feel okay about what I wanted. But, I honestly don't know what it is that I want now.

What I left our goals discussion with was that I need to do whatever it is that makes me happy, and feels right, not what I think I'm supposed to do, or what is best. That maybe I don't need to be in Bellingham right now, I can always come back to school, and I can take online classes. My point is that I learned from them in only a couple hours and from myself going home that I need to listen to my heart. As cliche as that sounds, it's true. Life is short, and you don't want to live with regrets, or the what ifs in life.

With all that being said, I learned that I truly only want to keep the positive people in my life. Those who will guide me to make my own decisions based on my wants and needs, and who are positive, and will support me no matter what my choice is.

I've learned that it's not "wasting time," it's learning through that time. If I keep going to school and learn about new things in school, or if I go home and take online classes, learning new things in school, and about myself. Like me going home this last quarter, it wasn't a waste of time with school, it was a learning experience for myself, about myself. People always talk about wasting time with certain things and what we do with our lives, but I feel like when you're doing what you want to, and you're with the people you want to be with, it's never a waste of time, it's all a learning experience. Even if you have to let some people, or something that was a huge part of your life go. It never is a waste, you learn from them or it, and you grow from those experiences. It's growth, whether it's individual growth or growth with other people.

Like I said, the take away is BE HAPPY, DO WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY. Be selfish if you have to sometimes, don't just do something because you feel that it's what you have to do, or should be doing.