The Boyfriend™ posed an interesting question to me last night. He asked me what I want REALLY want to do with my life. My answer was immediate, albeit grandiose: I want to change the world. And I do.
I spent the remainder of the evening trying to figure out how I would even begin to accomplish this. I'm scattered and kind of flaky. I want to try everything immediately and simultaneously. Most people that change the world are hyper focused to the point of obsession and hyper focusing is just not my bag, baby.
Then I remembered that my great-grandmother changed the world. A Fulbright scholar and Guggenheim Fellow, she is now celebrated in Australia. People in the states, who wish to, can now receive a degree in Folklore because of her efforts. She wrote a couple of books. She graduated Suma Cum Laude from NYU in 1934, when few women even went to college, never mind graduated with honors.
I remembered my nana, who went to Harvard where she received her masters degree in education, which she used to teach generations of school children who still honor her to this day.
I remembered my mom who overcame a lot of adversity to start her own business which is, by all accounts, very successful.
These are my models. This is the blood that flows through my veins. These women broke through barriers and wouldn't take no for an answer. So, really. What's holding me back? Not a damn thing!
That old saying, "change starts at home" rings particularly true right now. A LOT of what I want to accomplish starts right here. It starts with my life list. It starts with teaching The Trolls about compassion and making a difference. It starts with filling my home with love and tolerance - for myself and my family. And I've already accomplished much of that, with no small amount of assistance from The Boyfriend™.
The next step is to make sure that I am brave enough to share it all here, in this space and to make sure that I am frank about it all, despite the level of embarrassment I may experience. I'm not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, so I really shouldn't pretend to be.
After that, I need to make sure that I insist on love. Because changing the world requires love. A lot of it. Self love (not to be confused with selfish love), love for your neighbor and love (for the sake of conversation and to eliminate resistance to the idea, we'll call it tolerance) for your enemy.
It's about honoring processes and the ups and downs that come with the journey. It comes from not resisting but going with the flow. It also means that I'm going to have to learn to live with things thatbmake me uncomfortable and learn when it's time to let go of thosenthings that are no longer appropriate for my journey.
And I realize that I sound like a lot of self help gurus out there. I also sound like a whole bunch of other bloggers out there that want to make a difference with their story. My joining my story with theirs, I believe there's a greater chance for success for the world to tranform into a beautiful, loving place.
Cheers to the first steps on this journey.
Namaste
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