In the Middle of the Messy Part…

I know it probably sounds absurd to many that at the ripe old age of 39 I’m still having some rather elementary realizations about life in general.  But, much of my existence has been spent in “survival mode” (at least emotionally, anyway) with me moving from one experience to the next with little to no time for reflection.

I don’t remember a time that I wasn’t just “reacting” to life and getting through it the best I could.  Reflecting on my life, things happening around me, my reactions to them and adjusting based on those reflections is a newer skill for me.  It’s certainly not perfected, either.  But I’m doing better now than I ever have and hopefully, like a fine wine, I’ll just keep getting better with age!

So, today’s realization: Life is messy; sometimes when you start cleaning up the mess, thinking you’re going to accomplish great things, it only gets messier.  It’s in that moment, when your efforts have taken messy and created messier, that you have the opportunity to discover something about yourself: are you going to quit when the going gets tough or are you going to keep going until you reach your goal?

You see, at that moment you could simply quit – say you were foolish for starting in the first place. You could learn to live with the “messier” you’ve created and even label it a “lesson learned”.  And you can go on living your life as if that lesson, that you should just leave well enough alone, is a good one.

But the trouble with living that way is you never know what might have been accomplished if you hadn’t quit and given up.  You have no way of knowing if quitting was the right decision or if quitting has forced you to accept less than you could have had.

Today, I was cleaning up a mess, literally, when I realized all this.  I had started cleaning up something that wasn’t all that messy looking in the first place when I realized that my efforts were making it look far worse than it did in the beginning. ACK!

Leaving it looking that way wasn’t an option…I had to keep cleaning until it looked better.  It took time and effort, for certain.  I was worried that I had created a disaster.  I had to reassess my approach and adjust so that my efforts were successful.  I had to work harder and longer than I expected. And in the end, it paid off!

And right there, in the middle of the messy part, I realized something important about life.  Thank goodness for messes to clean and the ability to keep learning!