“A ship is always safe at the shore – but that is NOT what it is built for.”
Every day we wake. We prepare ourselves for our day in the expectation that we will do those tasks we need to complete. Then we return home to rest, sleep, and repeat the same actions for our next day. No matter what we engage in, we all have expectations that life will happen as it should each day, or at least somewhat close to the plan. That is living; but is it really?
When you are in the process of living each day, doing the things to provide the essentials of food, shelter, clothing, and some element of fun or relaxation, you seldom stop and think about your course or the big picture of your life. It is in the quiet times that we can take stock of ourselves. If we are lucky and are 100% honest with ourselves, we can improve the person we are.
My personal experience has not been the expected path of school, marriage, and children etc. My path has been always a bit off the ‘normal’ track. My timing in life has never been right. I sometimes wonder if I was born late and have been spending my whole life running late. I have always had the feeling as if I was behind, trying always to be the best I could be, but failing. I think of things after the fact. Maybe it’s because I am always analyzing things to see how they could be better. Perhaps that is a good thing, or just a massive character flaw. I am not sure if I will ever answer that question. The one thing I have come to realize lately is that I do finally think there is a positive outcome to all this introspection. I always strived to be a good person and thought I was, but my belief is that my recent efforts have made me become a better person. I have had the courage to really look at my actions and see the results of them on the world around me. I have made the effort to change my way of reacting to others so I am creating better outcomes, both personally and professionally. In the end this is the only thing we do control, namely the way we react to the things that happen to us.
Now comes the even harder work of getting back into the world. I deliberately, and with some level of precision, removed myself from the everyday bustle of life. I did this due to a specific event that rocked the foundation of my existence. However, as someone once said, it’s not how we get knocked down, but rather how we get back up and revive ourselves, that shows the true test of our character. I was always considered by my friends and family as the one who always managed to overcome difficult situations with ease. To be honest, I just did a great job of veiling my emotions. Those close to me were all confused at how to react to my withdrawal. As most people do when they are unsure of what to do, they did nothing. This made it very easy to pull back into my shell. In our busy, rush, rush world today, it’s amazing how easy it is to pull away from people, and how hard it is to regain that closeness once lost. Crawling back out of a self-induced isolation on your own is painstaking work. You can lose days so easily so that when you look back, what you think has been a brief period, turns out to be wasted years. As we all know, time can’t be recaptured once passed.
I suppose what I am trying to say is this… It is good to take some quiet time for yourself to consider how you are doing on the ‘life-living’ checklist. It’s ok to take some time to heal from a tough situation. Always give yourself some quiet time for reflection. However, make that pause brief, and then jump back into life before it leaves you regretting the time you wasted and lost days of being on the sidelines. Life is for the living; the good, the bad, and the difficult. Being happy is a choice, it is so worth the effort, never too late to start, and enriches not only your time in this world, but creates ripple effect of enriching and improving the happy quotient of those that are in its wake, and that is most definitely worth the time to ensure.
Maison de L’amitié: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Orchid/177/89/23
EJ's Closet 
That was very interesting, EJ. It takes a brave person to realise that reacting to everything without stopping first and considering your actions is a very fraught way of life due to the consequences incurred. It’s said that emotions rise and fall like hot air in a balloon and if you just stop and concentrate on the emotion with full heart, then it pops and disappears. It’s not always easy to do this, especially if you are very upset. But I think that for advancement, it has to be done. So I think you’re very brave to tackle this.
I’m in the period of my life where I suppose I have turned into a hermit. I find this a much quieter and easier phase to deal with. I have an outlet on the web and have created a persona like an actor, to be honest. Is it the real me? I think so… but with a lot taken out that I consider the darker side of me. Maybe all writers need to be like this to balance out characters in the books they write. I’ve had the most horrendous things happen to me in life and some of the most wonderful, too. I don’t know if I’ve got over either of them, it feels like an emotional bombardment. I just know that for me to exist, I have to retain a balance of peace and quiet and sit in the middle of that with the two areas of life – horrible and nice – on either side. I don’t know if this makes sense to you, but as you are so good at introspection, maybe it will, my friend.
Yes, Moz, it makes sense to me. I’m sitting along side of you, just so you have some company. 🙂