The End of The Road: Blog #475

Here we are at the end of another year, and my how 2015 has flown by! I’ve had lots of up and downs, and it’s been a rough and bumpy ride sometimes, but I can’t say that I would completely change it for a sunnier year. All in all, I feel that even my down times gave me some treasures to take forward into the next stage and year of my life. I’ve learned more about myself and have rediscovered parts of myself that I’ve let go to please others. I don’t believe in resolutions; but if I had to make one, I would say this year is when I start to do more to please myself. People come and go from your life, as most of us well know, but if you can say at the end of the day that you’re happy with yourself, then good for you and carry on! More times than not, we get carried away making sure everyone else is okay to the point that we’re last on the list or sometimes not even on it. Now it’s time to give yourself permission to “do you” and give yourself some happiness.

I pen this post at least once a year and typically it posts around the end of the year. It’s my annual reminder to everyone who is dealing with the slight depression of missed goals and deadlines that we should all calm down. The fact of the matter is life’s goals don’t always happen by a certain age, or when we want them to occur, but rather when we’re ready. It’s painfully hard for people to accept this fact of life, and it leads them to terrorize just about everyone else in their lives. They’ll terrorize their friends with conversations about missed goals in their own life. I’ll be the first one to refuse to engage in conversations like that in 2016, it’s not happening to me.

As you read in the title, this is blog #475. Good Lord, that's a lot for a blogger...a lot! For the last 3 years and almost 4 months, I've given my life to sharing with you some of the lessons of my personal relationship story. Some good, some bad, some entertaining and funny, some painfully real and hard to type. For 1,210 days, my life as a blogger was wide open for everyone to see, posting content 3 days a week (on average) without any repeats (which was hard to do because I never wanted to recycle a story for the sake of putting something out there). So in the 1.7 million plus minutes in the life of this blogger, I've seen many things happen; international radio phone interviews, radio shows heard nationally and locally. I've been somewhat sought after for my perspective on many life and love related things, and its all been a great ride but none of them are more important to me than watching my son grow up right before my eyes.

I learned something about being a father to a now almost 15 year old; motivation is two sided. Watching him go to high school, and helping him through this phase of his life has been key. He looks at me and is SO inquisitive about how it was when I was in school. I share with him my classroom struggles and how they helped me be better at life, and he actually listens. Comparing them to his generations struggles are like comparing apples to oranges, and he understands that. His mother and I preach the importance of education to him, but I left college before graduating in 1987 and it rings a little hollow sometimes. Since that time I've been working for everyone, making companies rich for decades, satisfying everyone but myself. Life happens when you become an adult, but the blame for that is totally mine.

I guess what I’m trying to say is maybe there are people who are upset or disappointed that their lives are not where they expected it to be. I ask those people, what can you do about it now? If you’re still here, then you're here for a reason. I spend more time now focusing on the good things in my life, even when they run short on availability. Sometimes I can’t see the sun behind the clouds, but instead of being mad that I can’t see it, I’ve learned to be happy that at least I can see. It's in that lesson that I made the decision to go back to school full time in 2016 to complete the two semesters I need to get my communications degree. The greatest bond my son and I can have at this point in his life, is the both of us going to school together. We struggle and triumph as a team, and the importance of education is preached to us both at the same time. Motivation, like I said, is two sided. 

Life is beautiful not because we’re always successful or things go as planned, life is beautiful because it has a little bit of everything. As a blogger, I've learned to love people because people are crazy. We’re all crazy a little bit, and life doesn't always go as we planned, but the majority of us refuse to admit it. However if we were all sane and the same at the same time, then we would be a very boring group of human beings on this earth. I plan NOT to be boring in 2016.

So is this really the end of the road for Relationship Lessons? After 29,000 blogging hours you would think navigating the road at this stage would be a little easier. Truth is, its not the end, but it's definitely a new beginning for all of us. There will be lessons in the new year, none bigger than the lesson of me doing this for myself. Lessons just like life, will come at a different pace than we're used to. I want to thank you all for the support you've given me by reading, commenting and sharing my content this year. Whether you've agreed or you've disagreed with me, it's been one helluva ride!

See you in 2016...

relationshiplessons.net

The 12 Blogs of Christmas: The Gift of Enjoying Your Life

Well, we made it to the day before Christmas! Everyone, including yours truly will be out and about among the hustle and bustle of this fast paced holiday. Here's a question to ponder; If today was the last day that you and I were going to live, would we be in such a rush to finish it? It's a question that many of us have asked ourselves in some sort of way throughout the years. For most of us, it's simply a question that we brush to the side, and continue with our everyday lives. But for some of us, it's a question that stops us right in our tracks and makes us reevaluate our lives.

If you were like me growing up, you were taught that there is some sort of order in life that consists of being born, going to school, getting good grades, having a career, paying taxes, having a family, paying more taxes, then dying. Sounding a little familiar? I would like point out there is nothing wrong with it if you are following this direction in your life, but if you were reading a story of your life, would you be interested in it, or would you put it back on the shelf where you found it?

It's the in-between points of our major achievements that I believe we need to use in order to stop and embrace for as long as we can, then smile that we even had the opportunity to live it. So many of us are constantly in what I call the “rush of life” that we fail to slow down and look back at what we accomplished, and take a moment to appreciate what we’ve done. For those of us that have families, do we even take the time to celebrate it with them, or are we just off to accomplish the next goal?

After many years of the sort of programming that school and life has taught us, are we so anxious to see the next day’s sunrise that we completely miss out on today’s sunset? There’s nothing more exciting than thinking about tomorrow. It brings so much excitement and potential that it nearly knocks us out of our chairs, but until tomorrow comes, let's focus on this moment in time. Today's relationship lesson is whether you’re sitting next to your family, relaxing on a beach, eating dinner after a long day at work, or Christmas shopping like me, let’s take the time to enjoy the moment we have right now. Let’s do it for our families, our friends, and for ourselves.

Merry Christmas everyone, and thank you for reading The 12 Blogs of Christmas...

relationshiplessons.net