I take a 3 mile walk almost everyday while the girls are at school, part workout, part sanity saver. I’ve been doing this for nearly 2 years now and I look forward to it every day. With our change in circumstance its been hard for me to get away during the day. When Tim comes home, I’m honestly just beat and don’t feel like it. I got to go out today, I’ve been out with the girls but just around the block a few times on roller skates and I’m keeping my eye on them so they don’t break something, I haven’t really looked around. I realized today that the trees seemed to have bloomed overnight. It was beautiful. There isn’t much color or fluffy green nature where we leave but there is some, and the sight of it was so refreshing. While a lot of things have seemed to stop these days, without even realizing it the tress continued to bloom. It actually seems like they quite literally said, watch this you weird virus keeping everyone inside, we are going to speed up our beauty and give them something to enjoy.
This is going to be super cheesy but it honestly hit me like a ton of bricks on my walk today. We can use this time to be consumed by fear, different sense of busy now that are demands at home or work may have changed, excuses of not being able to interact with people or go to different places. All of these things will lead to nowhere. We cannot just stop blooming because this new hurdle has come into our world or use it as an excuse. In a weird time, it feels like many people are having to justify a lot of what they are doing. Justify why they went out when they knew they shouldn’t have, why they are homeschooling a certain way, why they are not homeschooling a certain way, why they aren’t working hard on their business or why they are working so hard on their business. I think feeling like you have to provide justification of any or all of these things maybe gives us a sense of control in a world that seems out of control or the need to feel like we are doing ok.
I recently heard this statement-If you are constantly justifying something, you probably shouldn’t be doing it-it was during Ed Mylett’s interview with Steven Kotler. (If you aren’t listening to #maxout yet do yourself a favor and start!) But this rang so true for me! I often feel like I need to justify things I do, especially when it has to do with business or anything that takes me away from my kids. I feel like I have to get the proper approval. But when I heard this it made so much sense. It’s important to know your “why” so it keeps you motivated, but if I constantly have to explain why I’m doing something, I maybe shouldn’t be doing it. That’s a whole lot of effort to explain myself over and over for something I feel passionate about or enjoy doing. It’s been hard but I have made a strong effort to not do that, because I don’t want to give those things up. I have to say it’s like a weight lifted off. It feels more natural in a way, I can’t really explain it.
I just want to encourage you to just do what YOU think is best and support your neighbor when they are doing their best even if it is different. If you homeschool for 1 hour every other day, great that works for you, if you drill your kids until everything is crossed off the list-awesome, if you think of ways to give things away for free in order to create some sort of “helping hand” in all of this-amazing! If you charge a fee for something you can make or do for someone-no problem, if you have opportunities to help someone out, by all means don’t hold back.
We are all experiencing something we’ve never really navigated before and I feel there are thin lines everywhere. But it is also an awesome time to come together and help each other through it some way or another. So just remember, the trees did not stop blooming this year, I think they actually sped up, and there were no excuses for it, they just did it because that is what they were meant to do in the environment that was created for them. Keep blooming in the way you were meant to, in the environment that is presented to you and no excuses needed.