..If you won't light a fire under your @$$, who will?

"Are you bored with life? Then throw yourself into some work you believe in with all your heart, live for it, die for it, and you will find happiness you thought could never be yours." - Audrey Hepburn-

I am a singularly unmotivated individual.

Allow me to clarify...I do not mean that I spend my days lounging on my couch, eating bon-bons and catching up on my daytime television. I have a job, two kids, a husband. I cook, clean, do the grocery shopping and spend quality time with family and friends.

I also complain about how unfulfilling I find my work. I grumble about how I would like to go back to college but can't afford it right now. I mumble things about finishing my half finished sewing projects, signing up for dance lessons or taking out my oil paints...and yet I do nothing about it.

I have several theories as to why (besides being tired from the day to day..which really isn't a theory, but an excuse).

• I live inside my head. A song comes on the radio, and I choreograph an entire dance in my mind. I see a fabric and immediately fashion an entire dress from it..in my head. I have such confidence in my abilities to execute these things, that once I've realized them intellectually, I no longer feel the urge to act them out in reality.
• I don't want them bad enough. I am content as I am, and the idea of putting forth the effort to accomplish these things usually makes me tired..so I don't bother.
• I'm afraid, not of failure, but of success. If I begin these things, and I'm good at them, what are my responsibilities to them? If I don't follow through, am I wasting my talent?

I want to find something to be passionate about. Something that causes me to break out of this cycle of excuses and act. I want to feel motivated, to jump out of bed each morning, excited to begin my day.

I have been told a number of times, by a number of people, that that's just not how life is. People don't like their jobs, they work to support themselves. I cannot accept this. I can't believe that this is all there is to life. I know there is a purpose for me...I just need to figure out the best way to find it.

Hugs and Smooches,

Belle

..And so it begins..

"When I was young I knew everything" - The Verve Pipe

I was an amazing child. Just ask my grandmother.

I was blessed with an incredibly supportive, loving (and enormous) family. My every undertaking was met with thunderous applause and the assurance that the world was a better place because I existed.

This unconditional recognition of my greatness, combined with a sheltered lifestyle, led me to be a very self assured child and teenager. I knew exactly who I was and where I was going. I knew everything.

As I got older, this assurance led me to try everything, with the certainty that I could not fail...and I rarely did. I had an unquestioning faith in my ability to succeed.

Enter the "real" world.

After I struck out on my own to make my way in the world, I was bombarded with information, opinions and other people's perceptions of me. I still had the love of my family, but was no longer sheltered from the rest of the world. My previous impressions of people and the world at large as a wide open benevolent community no longer held true.

There was so much to learn. So many things I had accepted as truth that I now began to question. I found the pursuit of knowledge thrilling, the volume of information and opinions in the world was so exciting! However, I was lacking one crucial skill... Well, maybe two. The ability to take all that information and figure out what parts of it applied to me, and what parts of it I should discard...and knowing who to trust.

So here I am at 35 with a good amount of skills and information, a wide eyed optimism and enthusiasm for most everyone I meet, but no direction. Thus, the reason for this blog.

My hope is to use this blog as a sounding board. I'd like it to be a tool to help me sort out my ideas of myself, my enviornment, and my purpose...and, oh, yeah..

I'd like to once again be able to recognize my own greatness ;)

Hugs and Smooches,

Belle