Wake Up Call

Where does the time go? Days are passing like hours lately. I’m trying to stay positive and choose happiness, but it’s been a challenge. How does one overhaul their life when everything around them stays the same?

I wake up daily in the same bed, in the same claustrophobic, cluttered cabin that I have lived in for the past seven years. It is never fully clean and impossible to keep free of disorder (less than 500 sq. ft. + 2 animals + 2 people = always messy). I take the same car on the same road to the same building for work. I come back home, always overwhelmed by the number of unaccomplished tasks glaring at me.

I have no space. My mind is as cluttered as my surroundings. It seems like so much sometimes! There is so much I want to do. I am trying to regroup in order to focus, but I haven’t seemed to have any more success at achieving my goals with this method. I just keep thinking of more and more goals and things I wish I could do or change.

I wish I could “just do it.” Do it all. I just want to be perfect. Is that really too much to ask? I know, I know. If it was easy it wouldn’t be worth it.

I just feel like I need to reset. My environment is so constant, it seems impossible to change my habits. My husband and I had planned on moving from California to Colorado in October last year. The week before we were going to give our 30 day notices to our jobs, my father went to the emergency room and ended up spending a full month in the hospital due to multiple brain tumors. He was eventually diagnosed with stage IV prostate cancer that had spread to his lungs and brain.

Needless to say, we decided not to move. I feel blessed to be able to be here for my father during this time. However, I was so looking forward to the extreme change.

I have good ideas on a daily basis. I have felt consistently inspired for months now. Yet I’m still stuck in a rut. I can’t stretch out. My brain is hard-wired for all my bad habits. I still feel like I’m always looking outside myself for happiness – coffee, cigarettes, food, consume, consume. I actually believe that these things will make me feel better in my weak moments.

I have done fairly well on my new goals since I last wrote (for a complete list of my current goals, see the “Goals” page). I have been planning daily. I haven’t always accomplished everything on my list for the day, but I’ve been more focused and productive than usual.

I’ve remembered to record my habits about 50% of the time. I might have to create a paper version at some point to make it more accessible. Choosing happiness, as I said, is not going very well. Much of the time I just can’t focus on it – even though I’ve surrounded myself with reminders. It seems like a chore, it’s not exciting (even though it should be), and when I’m already grumpy it’s too hard to pull myself out of it.

Advice? I know there aren’t too many of you reading this out there yet . . . but if you stumble across it – please share your ideas. I read so many positive articles and blogs. I have an insanely large library of books on topics like meditation, cognitive behavioral therapy, recovery, yoga, self-help, writing, and spirituality (for a list of some of my favorites, see the “Reading List”). I feel like I have all the tools within my reach. I just can’t get myself there. I can’t take it to the next level. I’m all talk, no walk.

How does that change happen? I want to be in charge of my own life – my thoughts, my actions, my feelings. Somebody slap me in the face! Wake me up! Please!