{"id":6930,"date":"2018-03-13T10:36:15","date_gmt":"2018-03-13T08:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.com\/?p=6930"},"modified":"2018-03-13T10:36:15","modified_gmt":"2018-03-13T08:36:15","slug":"live-the-life-you-want-to-lead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/?p=6930","title":{"rendered":"Live the life you want to lead"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.com\/?attachment_id=6931\"  rel=\"attachment wp-att-6931\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-6931\" src=\"http:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/IMG_2373-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/IMG_2373-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/IMG_2373-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/IMG_2373-768x576.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In the half a year (or more) that I&#8217;ve been away from here, things have slowly started to move in my life. For years I&#8217;ve been aiming halfheartedly and haphazardly at simplifying my life. This morning (while cleaning out a bookcase!), I had to laugh when I saw the collection of books on simplicity. There are more stashed in other locations. I can&#8217;t even remember what most of them are like. Were they helpful? I guess not particularly. If they had been I would have it all sorted by now&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>About six months ago I came across a little mantra &#8211; <strong>Live the life you want to lead<\/strong> &#8211; and somehow it struck a chord and it stuck with me. Since then, with that in the forefront of my mind, I&#8217;ve been taking steps &#8211; some baby, some a little bigger &#8211; in the direction I want to go.<\/p>\n<p>And it&#8217;s working.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve taken a long hard look at my life and thought about what I really want and more importantly, what I don&#8217;t want:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I love my job at the university, but would I rather work 60% than 80% and have a bit more time for me? Yes? I asked for it and got it.<\/li>\n<li>Do I want to get back to running regularly even though my betablockers make it really hard and give me a wee bit of asthma. Yes. I&#8217;m suffering but I&#8217;m getting out there 2-3 times a week and feeling \u00a0proud of myself for trying, even if my running is rubbish!<\/li>\n<li>Do I really want to be church treasurer. NO!!! (did you hear how loud that one was?) I resigned, amazingly someone else volunteered to take over and my last day is Sunday with the Annual General Meeting. (Did I tell you how happy I am about this?)<\/li>\n<li>Do I want to have less clutter? Yes!\u00a0Every day I do a tiny bit of sorting out. Even if it&#8217;s only recycling old magazines that I probably won&#8217;t ever look at again. I haven&#8217;t had any really major purges anywhere, but just slowly and steadily reduced. OK, so no-one else in the family has noticed the difference. But I have. And with it has come a feeling of lightness and freedom.<\/li>\n<li>Was I happy about being a helicopter mom and always worrying about my children and interfering in their lives &#8211; did I achieve anything? No! So I am slowly learning to let go, let them fly (they are grown-up after all), make their own mistakes&#8230;.I think our relationships are better and nothing too horrible has gone wrong so far.<\/li>\n<li>Did I need help with managing my mother and her dementia from a distance? Yes. Did she want help? No? Does she like help now she has it? Yup, she loves it! And I get a whole lot less worked up about things!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I suppose I realised that nothing would change on its own. I had to start to take steps to make it the way I wanted it. Even if they are little steps and it takes forever, I&#8217;m going in the right direction.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m taking time to stop. To read, to sit outside and soak up some sunshine when there is some. I&#8217;m enjoying a nice coffee and a walk in the old town. I&#8217;m going to see films and meeting friends. I&#8217;m doing a lot of yoga and feeling all the better for it. I&#8217;m slowing down, walking instead of taking the tram, watching TV and knitting in the evenings sometimes instead of always being busy.<\/p>\n<p>It isn&#8217;t a life that will set the world on fire. I&#8217;m not going to run a marathon or write a best-selling novel. I have nothing to prove to anybody. I&#8217;m happy in my own skin and my little life is nice. It&#8217;s simple and it&#8217;s really nice. And that&#8217;s OK.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Helen<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the half a year (or more) that I&#8217;ve been away from here, things have slowly started to move in my life. For years I&#8217;ve been aiming halfheartedly and haphazardly at simplifying my life. This morning (while cleaning out a bookcase!), I had to laugh when I saw the collection of books on simplicity. There [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQtrc-1NM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6930"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6930"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6930\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6933,"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6930\/revisions\/6933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}