Being a grown up is so much harder than anyone tells you it's going to be.
I'm not talking about the getting-to-the-train-on-time bits or the remembering-the-water-bill stuff.
I'm talking about the knowing-how-to-talk-to-people part and knowing-when-to-put-your-phone-away thing.
Yesterday Chelsie and I were talking and she asked me, out of the blue, "what motivates you?"
While I was thinking about it, she continued, "you don't have to make it about working out or your job but just about life in general like... why do you work as hard as you do?"
What's funny about the way she phrased her question is that I see total interconnectivity with every aspect of my life.
Everything has to be working in harmony or else it all falls apart. I put just as much energy into my job as I do into being healthy and building up my relationships with people.
If I throw off that balance, everything falls apart.
So... what throws my life off balance?
It's pretty simple.
Yesterday after running up and down the stairs a few times, one of the class leaders said "hey you look like you want a challenge" and he handed me a weighted bag and sent me back on my way to the stairs. It sucked.
The next time, he handed it to someone else and I took off once more—but this time I sprinted happily up the stairs, totally unburdened.
Isn't that so much like life?
I have a tendency to wear my failures and mistakes like weighted bags around my neck, pretending they're not there and that I deserve the challenge. I go through my life smiling, but secretly making decisions based on what other people think of me, letting their perception and judgment define me instead of writing my own story.
Why do I do that?
Every time I throw that on the ground and keep moving, I soar.
And every time I remove negative voices from my life and fill my time with people who speak life into each other, keeping my balance becomes easier and easier.