Fashionista to Passionista

Well, dear readers, the time has come to shit or get off the pot (for me; I don’t know about you). The time has come to make the changes that will get me where I want to go. How many times have you told yourself “As soon as…. then I’ll…..”. How many times have you let your life get in the way of your life? How many times are you going to hit the snooze button on the alarm clock of your dreams? Okay, that was lame, but you get the idea. For me, I have decided to no longer hit the snooze button. It’s time to wake up.

I have taken a week off of my corporate life, which means 9 days in total to do with as I please. And I plan to revamp my life. No, I’m not going to quit my job and move to Costa Rica. At least not yet. I like my corporate job, and it pays for all that I want to do. It pays for this website, for the Organizer fee I pay to manage my women’s social group, for my new Mustang. I’m not talking an Eat, Pray, Love kind of revamping (although I’ve organized a dinner/movie event for my group this weekend to see it). I’m not talking a Roz Savage kind of revamping. In both these cases, these women left their previous lives behind and embarked on a bold, new adventure. They inspire me, but I’m not there yet. I’m talking about the kind of revamping where a) you get your foundation in order and b) you bring balance into your life so that c) you discover what really matters to you. I’m not talking about a Second Act where everything changes. I’m talking about the prologue to the Second Act, where you start to incrementally make positive changes in your life rather than continuing to live on auto-pilot. 

Follow along with me on this 9-day journey, and let’s see what shakes out at the end of it all.

Day 1: Where Are You? Even the best driver will never arrive at their destination if they don’t know where they are starting from. If you have a map from Toronto to Chicago, you’re going to have trouble getting there if you’re actually starting from Los Angeles. Time to take stock of where you are.

Call to Action: Grab a pen and paper, or your laptop, and start writing down the areas in your life where you are satisfied, and forget about those for now. We want to focus on those areas where you are not. Write a report on yourself. For instance, my list of areas to work on include: a solid financial plan (rather than just surviving each month), a writing schedule to work on my book, incorporating exercise into my lifestyle, de-cluttering my environment. Areas where I don’t need to currently focus: my corporate life (going very well), my relationship with my kids and live-out boyfriend (both humming along nicely). At the end of the exercise, you need to have a list of the areas you want to focus on. That’s it, you’re done! Now go on to something else, and let that sit for a while. 

Because I’m on vacation, and because I’m currently all about creating balance in my life, I spent half of Day 1 doing the above work, and the other half doing some things I had been talking about for a couple of years now. I went on a field trip to Whole Foods, a grocery store which offers all kinds of healthy and organic products, and then to Turtle Creek Books, a used bookstore not too far from my home. I enjoyed both outings tremendously. What does it say about your life when it takes a couple of years to actually find the time for these outings? If we look at the motto “Work Hard, Rest Hard, Play Hard”, it’s easy to see that I have focused most of my energy on “Work Hard” and left very little energy for the remaining two.

But that is starting to change. A few weeks away from 50, I no longer want to focus solely on Work Hard. There is so much more to experience.

Bring on Day 2……

It’s interesting how we see all experiences from our own perspective. Mine is predictably female. And so, without giving it much thought, I figured my experience – shared by many women of a certain age – was a distinctly female one. Not so, as it turns out. While discussing living passioniately with friends, both male and female, it seems that the search for meaning and joy is not restricted to the fairer sex. Just because they don’t talk about it as much, doesn’t mean that men of a certain age are not also searching for that which makes them feel passionate.

A biker friend of mine is involved with a charitable organization which helps children with cancer. He himself cut off many inches of hair and donated it for the benefit of others. He’s making a difference. A neighbour, past his 50th birthday, recently took up mountain biking, a sport usually reserved for men half his age. Fresh from an outing to the escarpment, sporting angry bruises to prove it, he couldn’t be happier. He’s raised his kids, and he is now focusing on what brings him joy. Another male neighbour is exploring his love of photography and running (separately – I don’t think he takes pictures while he runs; that would be dangerous.) It was actually a male colleague who brought Roz Savage to my attention. Roz is an eco-warrior who changed her life radically by leaving her former spouse and home behind, and began rowing around the world to bring attention to environmental issues. Not too far past his 40th birthday, decided he was not satisfied with the status quo and so, in a life-altering decision, is going back to school for his Ph.D. Yes, it affects his family. Yes, it means significant changes. But, as he points out, it’s his life, and it’s half over. One of my readers even commented that my blog – obviously geared towards gatherers – had attracted a hunter.

The common denominator here is that middle-age seems to bring about a time of reflection for some of us, hunters and gatherers alike. We feel compelled to find meaning in what we are doing, and doing what is meaningful. We have very little patience for that which doesn’t conribute to our own growth or to the benefit of the community. I think that’s a good thing. Agricultural revolution – industrial revolution – technological revolution – evolution revolution. We boomers make up a good portion of the population. We can make a difference.

As for the picture of Hugh Jackman, well, I have no idea if Hugh is a self-aware man. But he sure is pretty.