The old adage is "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush", so settle for what I have versus risking losing it for the potential of something better. Safe? Yes... Interesting, fun, awesome? No.
Worse than that, I was always settling, stuck and not moving forward. It's very difficult to end things, cut people out, hurt feelings, walk away and start over from scratch. There is an extreme amount of fear and possible guilt or shame that comes along.
I had also defined myself as someone who "never quit"... Good character quality in some in some things and devastatingly horrible in others. Over time I stayed in negative situations simply because I did not quit and I was not going to "lose". Every minute I was in that situation I was losing and the only way for myself to win was to move on.
It's much easier not to get into bad situations than it is to get out of them. I was normally making emotional decisions to get into situations, especially romatic relationships. Even when I thought I was being logical, rational and not overly emotional, I still was making the wrong choices most of the time.
Almost every time there was some calm point of stillness in the process where I would have some serious concerns about whether I wanted to really do that or not. Normally, I still did it anyway. I would disregard my thinking or simply not dig deeper into the feelings. I was a person of action, a go-getter, a person of action, blah, blah, bullshit myself whatever.
I was always, yeah ALWAYS, doing something for some exterior reason. I wanted money, possessions, attention, sex, atta-boys, people to like me, the list is endless. All of it was external validation that I was ok. Most of the time I didn't enjoy what I was doing, but I kept doing it because I wanted the reward at the end. I would almost always get the reward and was completely unfulfilled by it, so I'd pick something different to pursue.
So, at the age of 35, for the first time I sat down to see what do I really like to do and why. It was terribly difficult and brought out fear, confusion, guilt, shame and a sufficient amount of beating the shit out of myself for the past. After getting through the negative emotions, I was extremely grateful I had woken up and had a chance to change.
It is my life, I have a choice and most of the time I now only let people places and things into my life which I say "Hell Yes" too. More importantly, if it is not a "Hell Yes", then it is a "No". It would be better to have less and do less, then load up my day with things I would rather say no to. I have learned that my time is more valuable than any of those external rewards I was thinking I wanted or needed.
Things I now do every day:
1. Meditate 2. Eat healthy and Cook 3. Exercise 4. Write and Blog 5. Make a Gratitude List 6. Read real books 7. Listen to podcasts 8. Walk the dog
Those are all very simple things I try to do every day for myself and I get some benefit and enojoyment from them all.
When presented with new options of things to do, go to, people to meet or whatever, I have to decide if I would be willing to drop one of those things sometimes. If I wouldn't be willing to compromise by not doing one of those things for just even one day then it's obvious that the answer to whatever is wanting is my attention is "No".
I still try new things, meet new people, date and put myself out there, so I'm not that rigid and set in stone. I have personally set a high bar for how I like to spend my time, when I'm trying that new thing or meeting a new person I'm absolutely judging whether I am saying "Hell Yes" and if I cannot say that, then the answer is "No." and I don't do it again.
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