New midlife resolutions.

Now that I've passed my fourth decade of life, I've been doing a lot of contemplating lately about not just how I want to live my life, but also what I would find most meaningful by the time I pass on.

I've also been doing a lot of gardening at our new home, wanting to design and develop something beautiful – something that would be a relaxing oasis from... well, the rest of the way I live my life. Something that fight training and Muay Thai has taught me has been that trying too hard or going too fast can often be for naught. Students who become prodigies within a short span of time frequently miss fundamentally critical details in their rush to become young instructors. And one of the many things that gardening has taught me, is that there is the paradox of time. You can't rush nature. A plant will want to emerge from seed or grow however it wants to grow, and that takes time. But seasons are seasons are seasons, and if a season passes you by, there is such a thing as being too late.

Come to think of it, fight training has also taught me that there's such a thing as being too late. You get punished for it by getting clobbered mid-response. lol

So anyway, my takeaway from these is that when I decide what I want to dedicate my time for (and the key problem here is the need to decide – here I am at 40, and I'm still learning how to be okay with the fact that choosing one thing means saying no to all the others), I need to get things going and just let the season nurture my effort into fruition.

In thinking of the goals I have in life, and the struggles and obstacles that kept me from reaching them, I mourn a little bit for not having started sooner, or the missteps that necessarily kicked me off course. But, as I explore whether the doors might open again, I've made some thoughts too on how I'm going to approach my next life choices.

1. I'm not going to mourn anymore over what did or didn't work out. If I can get to where I've wanted to go, then I'll just be happy for what I've been allowed to accomplish. If someone was able to accomplish more and at a younger age, good for them. Our lives are just different books.
2. Sometimes life necessitates a wait-and-see approach, and so I hold back or stay silent just in case. But I've gotten to an age now where I know for the most part what happens next. So if it serves a greater good, then with all the love in my heart I'm going to be true and honest in what I communicate and how I make decisions.
3. I'm going to build in time for rest. I've never really done that prior to my 30s, and I've paid for it in all kinds of ways. Mental and physical rest allows the mind to play and the spirit to be creative. As a person who is only happy when she's creating, it's a necessary element to feed my soul.

So what's important to you? What would you want to leave behind?

Those are the questions I'm working on answering as I step into the new mindset above.