Author: purposeinmyprogress
You First
Daily writing prompt
What is something you wish you could tell your 20-year-old self?
When you are out there in the world, living on your own and paying your own bills for the first time – prioritize you first. Your dreams, savings, free time, adventures and travel – put you first. Let the relationships and career building come after. Get to know yourself before anyone or anything else.
Build a savings strategy for retirement for you first. See how it’s feeling when it’s going forward over the years.
Spend free nights and weekends with yourself first. See what YOU like doing before you start adapting to other people’s time.
Dream for yourself alone, first. Fortify your future vision with your heart’s desires, always, first.
Take trips (sometimes) just for yourself. See where your own wanderlust takes you before you follow other people’s agendas.
Journal. Just let it flow and see what you notice and what is underneath all the things.
Learn about the progress you are making and the changes you are seeing before you try changing someone else.
Decorate for yourself first. Sure, change your preferences repeatedly. See how they all feel in time.
Determine your own style first. Wear it. Change it up. Learn how you feel when you present yourself in different ways. Discover new versions of you.
Try to develop skills yourself first, then lean on other people if they are better, later. You might be surprised what you are good at.
I wish, looking back, I could have had the foresight to know that a sense of personal achievement would not come from finally having a marriage or a certain amount of money or a level of job title. Trusting that if I had all these pieces in place, all the sense of peace and happiness would follow, was a mistake. I am fortunate that in the future, I didn’t lose everything or fall entirely apart as a result. But I sure struggled and hurt more than I probably had to.
For any twenty-something folks out there reading this too: Hang on to all those dreams and wishes of the list above when it pertains to other people, relationships, careers and money. For sure, it’s not all bad. But when you get the choice early on to start investing your time, your dollars, your energy or your someday vision of happiness on other things – take that opportunity to do it for you first. It’s amazing how much easier and enjoyable the rest will follow if you build that awareness with yourself first.
Wordless Wednesday
Handling Fear & Self-Doubt
Handling fear and self-doubt, for me, come down to understanding what these really are in moments I feel them.
Fear should be a useful and intelligent emotion that results in safety and remaining alive and well. It may not be a pleasant feeling in the moment, but it is valuable and a signal not to be ignored. Over time, wisdom and experience helps refine fear into a sharp tool of benefit we thoughtfully listen to.
Self-doubt is a finicky emotion, often masquerading as other deeper emotions or histories needing further contemplation. When I doubt myself, I try to examine it and peel back a layer to see what is underneath the lack of confidence in myself. Is it having to untangle a long history of being made to believe I was wrong when I really right? Is it a deeper experience that long ago made me lose faith in myself? Or could it be an easy avoidance to doing the next right thing?
Mainly, handling emotions like these come down to understanding the feelings and seeing them for what they are / are not, instead of drowning in an ocean of anxiety and overwhelm.
Fighting the Crud
For the last 2-3 weeks, I’ve been the lucky winner of catching whatever this crud is that’s floating around. Fever, sore throat, chest congestion and a deep airway cough that could wake the dead, it has been awful.
One bright light through all of it has been the best little helper a sick person could wish for: Fury. This little girl has stuck with her human through it all. Even when I had to relocate downstairs in our basement guest room so that my husband could sleep while I coughed up a lung each night, my furry caretaker stayed glued to me, sleeping between my ankles.
I am so grateful to be doing better and back to work. The sooner my airways feel back to normal, the better. But it’s good to know my sweet girl is a constant companion, no matter how bad I get (or sound). We truly do not deserve our fur family members – what a sweet and loyal soul Fury is.
If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans.
– James Harriot
Wordless Wednesday
Our Local Mountain Lion
In prior posts I have alluded to partial photos we have seen on our game cams of a visiting mountain lion that has been difficult to get a full view of. Last week, we got another glimpse of the best quality picture yet of the whole cat.
The ground is mostly rock and sandy dirt that never shows a print unless it’s wet (which is probably three days out of the entire year). We’ve not seen any prints after any visits but I am holding out hope I’ll spot something someday.
My husband thinks this is a female, being smaller in stature than the larger male. If it keeps returning, we’ll definitely have to to think of a name. Fingers crossed (and thanks given, we don’t keep livestock or have animals outdoors).
Sunday Morning Coyote
As my husband was driving out of our property this morning, he texted me that he had sighted three coyotes on neighboring state land. Grabbing my camera that was already set up that morning photographing birds, I maneuvered the giant lens on it’s tripod onto the front porch and swung it southeast toward the movement. In the seconds it took me to get positioned, only one remained.
Coyotes are a hunted animal for how they prey on livestock and small domesticated and wild animals. The only interactions I have observed of them are out here in quiet mornings or evenings and always using the large tract of state land next to our property as a highway to their destination.
The way they move is always elusive and almost uneasy – as if they know there is no safety for them unless they remain unseen.
Wordless Wednesday
Look Who Came Back
Our ghost-like visitor returned this morning to set off the security camera just once, barely visible. It is the same size, same early morning hours, and same location as this first sighting earlier this year.
What baffles me is that each visit only produced one photograph. These game cam / security cams are meant to burst several takes when something comes by. The deer and pronghorn will set them off consistently, but with this mountain lion, it only seems to trigger one shot per visit.
I suppose it is too much to ask the creature to go stand in the middle of the driveway for a good picture, but we will see in the coming days and weeks if he/she humors me.