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I am writing this on borrowed time. My husband is downstairs as we speak, wrangling kids like circus monkeys—giving me the birthday gift I so desperately needed—time to write.
Since having three kids under the age of two, writing has become like a long lost former lover, silently calling out to me to return. Writing is the creative outlet that heals me, connects me to others, explains me, and puts my rabbit mind into an easy to read capsule.
But enough about that...I only have 28 minutes...27...So here are my 32 (didn't have time to get to 36) things I know to be true about life at the age of 36, which I hope help others to further cultivate their own purposeful life:
1) Acceptance of the things I cannot do right now. One thing having three small children has taught me is that nothing will ever be perfect; my house, my career, my body, my kitchen, my mini-van. I know that I will never be able to get back these years, when they think my husband and I hung the moon, and to just try my best to enjoy and revel in the terrible two's while a lot of projects and passions go undone (eh hem...sorry writing).
I. will. come. back.
2) To sort of piggyback on number 1, focusing more on the "today I can," instead of the "tomorrow I should." The most salient moment that sparked this for me was when I was laying with my infant son Crosby late in bed one night (2 or 3 am), thinking "I am so tired right now. Tomorrow I should definitely start his sleep training, but right now I'm just going to hold him in bed with me in the wee small hours of the morning and enjoy his sweet little baby murmurs."
There is always going to be a "tomorrow I really should..." but like Albert Ellis said, we would all be better off if we "start should-ing on ourselves a little less."
3) There are no happy people and no negative people. It is all about frame of mind. We can either choose joy or choose misery, and we are given that choice hundreds of moments throughout each day.
4) Without our stories- we are peace. Whenever I'm feeling frazzled, exhausted, sad, annoyed- I remember that little gem from Byron Katie and I look at what story have I had on loop for the last 30 minutes. I can usually find the culprit of my negative emotional state, and ask "but is that really true?"
5) Live in the world with an open heart. It can seem so frightening to do this. Especially if one has suffered trauma in the past, but it is the only way to truly live. Otherwise we are just getting through. Whenever I feel like I need to do this more, I physically open up my heart space wherever I am - grocery store, gym, etc and remind myself to connect and really look at people from my heart, not my head.
6) The narrative you carry is the narrative your kids will inherit. This one struck me so hard. I think we all get caught in the lazy narrative we inherited ourselves instead of actively choosing to change it for the betterment of ourselves and our children. What a gift to give our children: a peaceful loving way to view the world we live in.
7) Stop trying to get through life. The bills, the customer service calls, the parking tickets, the annual reviews, the wednesdays, the sleepless nights, these are all part of life itself. Happiness is not the absence of problems but the ability to deal with them.
8) Even though as a mother of three young kids, I feel a bit like Bill Murray's character in Groundhog Day - the good news I can hit the reset button at the end of each day and start anew.
9) Everything is temporary in life. Everything.
10) Every person in the world is someone's Izzy or Cole (____ insert your kids' names here). Treat accordingly.
11) The time we enjoy wasting is not wasted time.
12) Expect happiness and be disappointed sometimes vs. always expecting disappointment and being proved right.
13) Cultivate positivity in your life and in the world. No one is going to come down and hand it out.
14) Parenting is a bit like riding a bull from 7 to 7, cycling through guilt when you can't be there, exhaustion when you are- punctuated by moments of profound joy and phantom poop smell. (sorry I don't think there is a lesson here, just a thought I had)
15) The self cannot be put on cruise control until the kids are older.
16) One's marriage cannot be put on cruise control until the kids are older.
17) Don't allow the wrong tenants to take up precious real estate in your head.
18) I will never weigh 125 lbs.
19) Life only really changes through automation of those things we make a priority.
20) Nothing quite re-aligns us like a walk in nature.
21) You can see the world as basically friendly or basically hostile- you will find evidence to support both (thanks Einstein).
22) Seek to be worth knowing rather than being well known.
23) This world cannot be lived in a vacuum. Relationships lift us up, they inspire us, they make us feel normal again.
24) Sometimes the best thing we can do is not obsess, not do, not think- but breathe and have faith that everything will be even better than we could imagine.
25) What screws us up most in life is the picture of how we think things should be.
26) Stars can't shine without darkness. It is through our deepest sorrow, that deepens our highest moments of joy. We cannot experience the positive emotions without the negative.
27) Be the change you want to see in your life.
28) Don't let yesterday or tomorrow, use up too much of today.
29) Nothing goes away until it teaches us what we needed to learn.
30) Do one thing every day that makes you happy.
31) Enjoy today.
32) Ask husband for more time next time.
Dr. Colleen Long is the author of Happiness in B.A.L.A.N.C.E: What We Know Now About Happiness. Dr. Long is a licensed psychologist based in Boston, Massachusetts and Los Angeles, California. She did her undergraduate studies at Indiana University and New York University, and finished her Master's and Doctoral degrees at Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky.
She is the owner and founder of Mellow Comprehensive Psychological Services in Boston and Los Angeles and Manhattan Beach, California. She also started Mellow Self Help Therapy for people wanting to try self help before taking the next step and entering therapy. Dr. Long is frequently consulted as a media expert for E!, CNN, HLN, and The Discovery Channel. Dr. Long is an ongoing expert on the behavioral bureau for On Call with Dr. Drew on HLN.
For more on Dr. Long, please visit her website: www.drcolleenlong.com (link is external) or follow @talkdoc on Twitter.
