Now that I'm 53 and having raised 3 kids to adulthood, helped them financially as I could, the 30 year old is married and moved to Australia, my daughter gave me a 2 and 6 year old to help her raise, without the father's (2) involved much.
I'm starting to take the "It's all about me" saying to heart.
At my age and giving so much to others, I am realizing that making it all about me is more of a statement of responsibility than a selfish act. After all it's all just a Mind Movie we play over in our heads.
If more people took responsibility for their own choices, this world could be a different place. Instead of compiling a list of why everyone's problems are the result of someone or something out of their control and accepted that every action in our lives involves a number of choices we choose to make at that moment, we can then accept the responsibility for our situations.
I know that in looking back at my life, I always had a choice in every situation that arose. How I made my choices were usually based on guilt, other people expectations of me and sometimes my own gut feelings, just to name a few.
I have found that the choices I made based on my own gut feeling, although not always easy, usually turned out the best in the long run. In many cases learning to say NO, allowed the the other person the ability to take responsibility for their own actions and gave them an opportunity to grow or develop in some way. They had the opportunity now to create their own Mind Movie of their life.
My Parents had a big family and being the middle child often put me into positions that my siblings didn't have to deal with.
So here I am with grown children and grand children and finally learning to quit trying to help or fix everyone else's problems.
This realization of making it about me finally has led me to a new understanding of what I want in life. I always had this gut feeling that I was being lead through some sort of forces or universal path, but never understood it.
Learning what it is I want out of life for myself has been a tough journey and it's still far from over, but each day I wake up and remind myself that I will have choices to make and that if I spend too much time trying to analyze them I end up doing nothing.
Just making the best choice we can based on our gut feeling or instincts is at least doing something.
Regardless off the choice we make, we always have more choices that allow us to fine tune them.
Without getting too spiritual, if we have a soul, it doesn't care so much how we live our lives, but rather that it's our lives we are living.
Listening to poets such as David Whyte recite poems from the likes of Mary Oliver have helped me feel comfortable in living the life that is mine.
Today I had a number of things to accomplish and by prioritizing them and making choices that felt like they were coming directly from me. I am now sitting in my front yard on the Island of Maui, knowing most of what I set out to do from online work, errands to painting half of a bedroom are done.
I've even had time to write this up on my Blackberry. I know I didn't finish everything I had on my list and tomorrow I go back to work a 10 hour day, but what I did I feel good about and what I didn't do, there's always another day.
If that day doesn't come, it won't really matter to me anymore.
When I go to bed tonight, I will be doing it with the feeling that tomorrow may just be the best one of my life.
I think that making it "All about me" just means that if we do our very best and take care of ourselves first, we will be much better examples to those around us.
That's my Manao (thoughts or advice in Hawaiian)
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