Please excuse my appearance, but I’m completely off balance
these days. I thought I had it all together, thought I finally had a grasp
on things but no. My proverbial plate is too full. I’m not quite sure how it filled so quickly
and now the damn thing has overflowed.
Life on the road can be stressful, mainly because you never
quite know what will happen next, but life in one place? Turns out the switch between traveler and
expat hit me much harder than I could have expected. Now we have a lease on a house, Lila’s in
school, and we have work. We are committed. In some ways, that’s really lovely, something I found myself dearly craving after so long without a place to call home.
Emmanuelle Archer, a professional expat I met through
Twitter read my last World Blog Surf Day post and recognized the expat melancholy. She
e-mailed me to express concern and offer a listening ear. Emmanuelle’s website, Winning Away Expat Tips and Resources,
offers a wide assortment of advice, outlook and resources to help adjust to
your new country and life.
Of course, I’ve been so busy trying to settle in, work, get
the house cleaned and liveable, find my way around, meet people, locate doctors
for the family, I haven’t written back. I’m pulled in so many directions I don’t even
know where to go first.
Then there’s my new job at Matador. It’s quite an amazing
experience. I’m meeting creative, interesting people, honing my writing skills.
I’m learning loads about search engine optimization, writing articles that
bring big hits and producing (hopefully) quality pieces in short time. Matador
has opened up my writing and teaching career in new wonderful ways.
It’s also my first so-called real job since before Lila was
born. The pace is wicked fast, and I too often feel I’m struggling to keep up.
I now have daily deadlines and people who will ask questions if they are not
met. In many ways, Matador pulls me back into the
I-need-it-all-and-I-need-it-now world I wanted to escape when we chose to leave
New York.
Thus my life feels like triage. I run from one line of my
to-do list to the next, never quite paying complete attention to anything and
never finding time to properly rest. Ironic, I think, given that what I write
for Matador is all about finding balance and thriving when you’re not on vacation. On the job training, I suppose.
So Why Is This and What Can We Do?
As I’ve struggled with all this, I’ve come up with four
different reasons why life balance -- too often happiness as well -- eludes us.
We’re searching for something missing in our lives.
This is how I felt when living in NYC. Not at first, mind
you. The city challenged me, but after ten years there, I no longer enjoyed it the choices I'd made for my life. I felt stuck, angry, uncomfortable. I just wanted to be free.
We spent the last three years searching and have since found
ourselves in a wonderful new city, where the people are perhaps the kindest,
most helpful and most decent I have ever met. My work is going well. Lila is
happy with school and friends. Noah and I have new projects on the horizon, and
all seems well.
I have everything I could want, so why so unhappy little
bear?
We're adjusting to something new.
I recently saw Facebook status update from Paulo Coelho
saying: Change is part of life. Friction is part of change. Get used to it.
Yes, change is a part of life, and often the good, happy
sort takes as much adjustment as the really hard painful kind. Perhaps the key
is to simply, as Coelho suggests, accept it. Let it just exist and eventually,
friction wears down to comfort again.
We Need Something New
So it stands to reason, that if change is a normal healthy
part oflife, if you’re not changing, you’re stagnating and thus will feel
friction from that as well. Sort of can’t win on the happiness train, can you?
Then again, it’s not really so much about winning as it is realizing that life
is a cycle of constant movement.
This is different from my first point in that you can have everything you want in your life, nothing is missing, but you are searching for change. Many times, you simply need to shake things up before going back to your life as it was.
We Always Want More, More, More
You’re thinking of the future and past, what you used to
have, what you hope to have. You look at your life, house, career, spouse
and friends seeing what isn’t there,
what could be, what used to be. Worst of all, when you turn this eye on yourself, the criticism will be the most harsh.
While happiness isn't something we can expect to have every moment
of every day of our lives, at times sadness is necessary, this sort of
thinking will leave us permanently dissatisfied. Unless you break away from this cycle, you’ll never find those crucial moments
of rest and happiness.
So Where Do I Go From Here?
I sit here at home typing with a gentle breeze blowing
through the kitchen, birds of all ilk chirping and still I wonder to why I can't shake this feeling. I don't feel myself anymore.
Then I realize, perhaps it is not that I am somehow not myself. Instead, there is a part of me that will always remain off balance until I make the clear choice to shift my thinking.
"How?" you may wonder. Well, first step is recognizing why you feel the way you do. Then you can start making a change.
DISCUSSION POINT: Where are you in the spectrum I describe here? And what do you do to make changes in your life? Or maybe you're one of the few, the proud, the content to be where they are. Perhaps you have some tips to share with the rest of us.
Photos courtesy of pinksherbert, dawnashley and aeu04117's flickerstreams.
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