It was only a very small meltdown, a very minor panic attack, seriously…
As per ‘List upon List’ post, a 6 month sojourn requires a strategy; and leasing one’s nest for the duration an insanity ticket! Well organised and loving a good list or five, I thought this would be a breeze…until my body said otherwise…
If you’re contemplating a short property lease the coming ‘countdown’ posts, complete withhints ‘n tips, will appeal; written as I sip a cuppa, swallow pain killers, clutch my chest and forgive myself for that very public mini meltdown. I also congratulate myself on learning creative sign language, avoiding an ugly moment with an Italian rental botch, cleaning a disgusting BBQ (man’s work!) and managing to squeeze an entire house into a very small storage space, all within 2 weeks.
Curious? Follow my next few posts and laugh…or cry…along with me.
Ever found your internal dialogue preempted with ‘If only I had….? A futile lament of course for we make our decisions based purely on the knowledge we have at hand at that point in time. I’ve had many of those internal conversations but one thing’s for sure, I don’t want to be lying on my death bed reciting that exact same lament. Nope! I want to be looking back on a rich, rewarding, satisfying life with every box of my personal mantra…to live, laugh, love, learn and leave a legacy* …well and truly ticked. Having said that, stepping outside of one’s comfort zone often requires huge leaps of faith coupled with a studious effort to ignore the inevitable ‘what if’s’. A six month sabbatical in a foreign country to fulfill a long held dream? Absolutely gargantuan leaps!
At scarily daunting times such as these I draw on a bottomless well of pertinent and at times poignant quotes, collected over the years and selected according to circumstance. My beloved quotes shore up fears, reinforce convictions and often become mantras, an all time favorite being ‘Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore” (Andre Gide) Fitting don’t you think? Let me share a few very special quotes that are driving and reinforcing my current journey as well as an arsenal of additional quotes I absolutely adore and that just may inspire or reinforce your own plans for avoiding those ‘if onlys’. I would love to hear yours too! * thank you to Stephen Covey for providing the foundations of my mantra way back in 1998, ASTD Conference, Orlando, Florida, USA
‘I am a fire fighter I am afraid the day might come when I’m not as brave as I am supposed to be’…printed on a postcard of the American flag. ‘I give decaf to customers who are rude to me’… written on a flattened Starbucks cup. ‘One of these men is the father, he pays me a lot to keep the secret’…taped across a collage of male celebrity faces.
Frank Warren, creator of the ‘PostSecret’ concept has over 500,000 plus anonymous secrets just like these written on postcards from strangers all over the world.
What started as a project involving 3,000 self addressed postcards, distributed across Washington DC and inviting people to write an artful secret then post and let it go has, in Frank’s words, ‘turned into a runaway success’ spawning best-selling books, museum exhibitions and talk tours.
‘I am so grateful to the psychiatrist I saw when I was nineteen, who told me I would be fine again. He saved my life’…penned across a sepia postcard.
As Frank explains…‘Everyone has at least one secret that could break someone’s heart; we hide much more than we know. When we keep our secrets inside they feel like walls, but when we find the courage to share them, they become bridges’.
Now here’s an interesting thing…readers of Frank’s postcard sharing blog http://www.postsecret.com voluntarily worked to create a complete and comprehensive data base of international suicide-prevention hotlines – suicideprevention.wikia.com. Having lost my sister in law to suicide and heard countless similar stories, I found it so heartening to see the sharing of ‘soulful, sexual, silly and shocking secrets’ also generating a tangible desire to reach out a helping hand to those in troubled waters. Such activity in my mind reinforces Frank’s favorite secret out of the hundreds of thousands he’s received:
‘We are all part of something bigger, and we’re all part of it together’.
We are indeed.
PS: Noticed Frank is touring and holding talks April 14 – 20 in Bris, Syd, Melbourne and Perth. I’m curious, aren’t you? (Full story Harpers Bazaar – April ’13 p.186)
hints ‘n tips, will appeal; written as I sip a cuppa, swallow pain killers, clutch my chest and forgive myself for that very public mini meltdown. I also congratulate myself on learning creative sign language, avoiding an ugly moment with an Italian rental botch, cleaning a disgusting BBQ (man’s work!) and managing to squeeze an entire house into a very small storage space, all within 2 weeks.
