The thing to do at the time

So in our own sweet, harmless ways, a lot of us have that streak of George Scrooge (like how I made him one person?) in us: we perhaps drift into something, or we choose something that seems like a good idea at the time. We do this with jobs, learning opportunities, relationships, kids, all sorts of things. And somewhere along the way, we feel like our choices have disappeared. We may not consciously grumble about it. In fact, we may be mildly okay with it.

We forget it doesn't have to be this way. We've talked about this before—finding options that allow you to do what you love—and I'm not going to rehash it here (maybe later). For now, we'll leave it with this: every decision you've made – every one of them – CAN be changed. You do NOT have to do the things (or do things the way) everyone expects. Even the kids, although as a rule, polite society frowns on that sort of thing.

But mostly what I want to talk about today is a particular kind of drift, because I do this frequently, and it really can be painful—not just the emotional torture of wondering WTF you were thinking, but detrimental to your goal of living a life of conscious joy (and sanity). It's the drift we find especially glaring in George Bailey's story: the drift of meeting other people's expectations.

It's not just becoming a doctor because your parents expected it. The worst, most pervasive and perverse is when other people's expectations—in the form of their PRIORITIES—become your to-do list.

Instead of saying 'no,' we say 'yes.' Instead of sitting down to write the great American novel, we write to the market (this is not bad, by the way, if your goal is to be a bestselling author, but it is bad if your goal is to write a particular story and you don't). Instead of eating the way that makes your body feel its best, that puts you at peak performance, you graze to be polite (again, not so bad, perhaps, if you're at an intimate dinner, the host/hostess are great friends, etc, but really, at a party? Who cares if you munch on carrots and cheese cubes instead of those little quiche thingies? And if they do care, why do YOU?)

We do things that will make us look cool (every generation has its cool), instead of things that make us happy. We listen to Bach when we really want to listen to Twisted Sister (or vice versa). And so on. We schedule our lives around the convenience of other people and we don't walk away when we're unhappy because "what would people think?"

If you are anything other than completely thrilled with your life right now, I invite you to take advantage of the season, the day, the whatever to decide on just one thing to say 'no' to. Just one. Give yourself permission to not be the person everyone else wants you to be or thinks you ought to be, at least in your imagination.

It's YOUR life.