Travel Lighter

Today was my day to be "back-up". That means that I hang around the station until the "primary" crew gets a call and then the back-up crew is ready to roll in the event of another call. So, when this happens I usually try to write in my journal and read. Today I was reading some of the articles that I have recently printed from the Living Life Fully web site. A really great line came out of one of these articles, "If I had it to do over, I would travel lighter." Don Herold 1953.


I re-wrote the words "travel lighter" on the margin of the paper with an exclamation point. What great advice. What a release it would be to stop purposely carrying around all this baggage and burdens! Granted, there are things that you can not put down due to their importance, but what about all the unnecessary crap that we tote around every day.

I would, and have, stopped worrying about where I fit in in the community, church...wherever! I wish that I would have done it sooner in my life. It is such a liberating feeling. To be yourself and not have to fit into a mold that is created by society that says that based upon these criteria you must behave and dress etc. in a certain fashion.

I would have had friends earlier that saw me and appreciated me for who I was. Not people that just called our relationship "friend" and then proceeded to only be their own version of what a friend should be and making it all about them. I would have chosen my friends more carefully and looked at their deeper qualities. I would have worried less about if they were appropriate. I would have cared more about their sincerity. Not who they were connected to and not "what can they do for me."

I would have worried less about trying to be so many things to too many people. I would have worked more on just "being" and hope that it was good enough. I would have carried around much less guilt. Less guilt about EVERYTHING! I would have cared less about everything that society says should make you feel guilty. I am trying more to this one now. I don't let myself get caught up in the trap of guilt. It is something that can really control you, if you let it, and I do not let it happen very often any more. At jobs I would get all freaked out when it was review time, but now I realize that I can only do the job at the level I do it, unless I am just totally lazy and don't care, but aside from that....I can work to the best of my ability and that just has to be good enough. They can always ask for more, but that doesn't mean that I am capable.

The second excellent line, from the same article was, " I would pay less attention to people who teach tension." I am in the end stages of an old friendship right now with someone that THRIVED on tension. All this girl does is live in the tension lane of stressville highway. I got off. I don't want to live like that anymore. John just pointed out to me recently that there are people out there who just can not function unless their lives are in turmoil. I am not one of them. She likes it when she has tension and she can get someone to come to her aid or rescue. It is such a cry for attention. These people also like to create tension (teach ) it in other relationships. They like to see you fall out with others. They do not share well. It is a good thing to get out of these types of relationships and away from these types of people.-

I am allowing myself to make mistakes and errors without being overly critical of myself. Shit happens. I am trying to be much less serious. I am not taking myself or my place in the world / cosmos too seriously. I am here for whatever reasons that I am here. I come in contact with many people in a day and can only hope that all my contacts are good and positive.

If they are not today... there is always tomorrow.