In what area of your life are you most successful? What lessons can you learn from that?
Happy New Year!
To answer the question: I would like to think I have several areas of my life that I’m successful – wife, mother, daughter, sister … but I think an area that I’m really proud of is my working life. I know I’ve said this before, my apologizes if you’ve heard this one, feel free to roll your eyes and snort in annoyance, but I’m proud of my accomplishments in the medical field. When I started, I knew nothing – NOTHING. It was a whole new language for me and I would go home crying because I was so confused and lost. Part of the reason was because the person who trained me was a crappy trainer, but a lot of the reason was because I knew nothing about the medical field. Then, my scheduler position was eliminated and I became a medical assistant because if I didn’t want to be a medical assistant I was told I would need to get another job. I didn’t want to go through the job process again, plus, my family was on my heath insurance so I became a medical assistant – against my better judgement. I had ZERO experience and again, training was crap so I literally learned on the job as I went along. I was so stressed out that I actually ended up in the ER – twice – because I thought I was having a heart attack, (I wasn’t), but I figured it out, by golly, and I got quite good at it.
Lessons I learned from that experience? Don’t give up. I persevered and I conquered. I wouldn’t want to repeat that deer-in-a-headlight experience again any time soon, but I’m glad I stuck it out. I feel like it made me stronger and more flexible at dealing with unexpected crap that gets thrown at me and I’m WAY more chill when that happens.
What words of advice would your 80-year-old self give to you now?
RELAX! Stop living in the future. Time already goes by so fast why you want to hurry things along? I’ve always been the kind of person who lives in the future – what do I need to do tomorrow? What am I wearing? What am I eating? Tomorrow is planned out today, what about appreciating what has been and what is happening right now? I’m trying very hard to live in the moment. To appreciate all the little things and just … breathe. It’s really true what they say, time goes faster the older you get. It’s scary, quite frankly.
DUDE – it’s already 2024!!!
What has been the main cause(s) for feelings of unhappiness throughout your life?
I don’t know that I’ve felt unhappy, per se, sure, there are days when I’m feeling depressed or just plain sad, but I would describe my overall feeling of … dissatisfaction throughout life.
I married my best friend and we’re still happy to this day. We have two boys, men now, that are GOOD PEOPLE. Our families, both sides, are really good people as well – no trouble makers, no one’s in jail, no one’s on drugs … we live in a nice house that’s paid off, we drive nice cars that are also paid off. Kevin just retired – I like my job … ish.
What’s to be dissatisfied about?
That’s an excellent question and I’m not sure I can put my finger on the exact answer. But I have a recurring dream, I’ve had it for YEARS AND YEARS where I’m supposed to be somewhere but the journey getting there is exhausting. There are so many obstacles in my way that I’m constantly having to take detours and physically fight sheer exhaustion to keep any type of forward momentum. I literally dream like I’m in a maze sometimes and just when I think I can see the end, it’s like someone reached in, grabbed the end and pulled it further away from me so that now the goal is distorted and further away. Just writing this makes my heart beat faster – it’s so frustrating!!
At the end of this destination, this journey that never ends, is a goal. I don’t know what the goal is but I’m desperate to reach it. Sometimes, I wake up mentally depleted and overly grumpy because I chased that damn goal all night long!
It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out what is going on here – I’ve always dreamed of being a writer but I’ve never really written anything. Well, of substance, I guess.
I don’t put much stock in woo-woo dream stuff, but I found a possible explanation that resonated with me:
When an obstacle appears in a dream, it presents you with an objective view of how you use the word ‘but’ as a roadblock. Whenever this word is used in a sentence, it negates the power of whatever preceded it. “I want to be healthy, but…” I know I should study tonight, but…” Obstacles present a tangible vehicle that allows you to understand how you get stuck. In the dream, you are attempting to do something, but there is an obstacle. Source
This aligns perfectly with my frustration of not obtaining my writing dream. There is always a BUT whenever I think, or talk, about my writing dreams.
Your turn!
Write From Karen 