Raise your hand if you can remember a time where change was coming and you remember that feeling of "Oh, crap. What now?" If we were all in a room together, I can bet that every single one of you reading this would have your hands up high in the sky, and that makes sense. There's a theory in the realm of communication (aka my area of study) called "human uncertainty theory," that states that people literally just don't like change. We don't like when we don't know what's coming up next. We don't like to feel like we have no control over the situation. In general, we don't like anything when we don't know anything about it And yet here's me... facing graduation, a wedding, house hunting, job hunting, and plenty of other uncertain variables in my life all at once. Most people, like to do each of these one at a time, in chronological order. Step 1. Graduate College Step 2. Find a Job Step 3. Get married Step 4. Find a house. But the Lord so graciously blessed me with the gift of multitasking. So I will be doing these all at once. (I'm not sure blessed is the right word, but I'm trying to be grateful here.) And to be honest... it's been hard. It's hard knowing all of this change is coming and that there isn't much I can do about it. It's hard knowing that some of this change is going to be really good, and some of it is going to be really different. It's hard trying to figure out what the next step is, when you don't even know what the next 24 hours is going to look like. But it's a little easier when you know that you have really good people in your corner. It was with one of those really good people that I got a really good tip of advice that was...
Maybe that's not profound to you, but for me it really made a difference. Some of the hardest parts for me have been deciding how I should about all of these conflicting events. I should be really happy to be graduating, but I also feel I should be really sad that my career as a college student is over. I should be really happy that I'm getting married, but I'm also totally and completely overwhelmed when I think about how busy that day will be. I should be looking every day for a full time job, but I'm also entirely too scared when I scroll through job listings on LinkedIn. But here's the good news. You don't have to pick a side To some that might be common sense, but for me it was refreshing to recognize that I can all kinds of things all at once. I can be happy and sad, and there might be days that I'm squealing with joy about all of these upcoming events, but on other days I can be totally freaking out.
I don't know if any of you have ever watched "Inside Out," but it's one of my favorites and actually psychologists praise it because of it's accurate depiction of the human brain and how it deals with emotions. Anyways, at the end as Riley (the main character) starts growing up, her emotions start mixing all together. It's no longer just happiness that controls her brain at once. It's usually a mix of emotions that come with change, and in the end some of her most precious memories are a mixture of happiness and sadness, or joy and pain. Sometimes it takes feeling some loss to realize all that you have coming for you in the end. May is usually a big transition month for a lot of people. Maybe you’re graduating middle school or high school. Maybe your child is going off to college after the summer. Maybe you're trying to make a big move to a new place. I don't know what it is, but for me I think it's best to give myself permission to feel it all, and to feel it all at once no matter the uncertainty or comfortability. To say what I feel, and feel what I say. Because in the end, we only get to feel a lot of these things once. |
Purpose:To express, explain, and exclaim the lessons life continually throws at me, and my take on how to deal. Archives
December 2021
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