I have another godson graduating from high school this spring and going off to college in the fall. I am working on another (see April 2014 blog) day-by-day calendar with thoughts that I’ve jotted down over the years. I hope he finds them useful. Here is a sampling:
- Confidence is cool. Some fake it through bravado, anger or other means. Others have earned their confidence through hard work. This is what makes them cool.
- Get comfortable with the down-time in life. Be okay with relaxing, not criticizing yourself because you need a break.
- Humor was missing. The anxiety of the moment dried up your sense of humor. Let it flow, be goofy, have fun.
- Allow for the possibility to be hurt. Allow for the possibility to be exceedingly happy. If you don’t put yourself out there, the relationship will drift.
- Daydreams, fantasy… not bad things, unless they are getting in the way of reality.
- Spend time thinking about what you want to do outside of making a living. Where is your passion? Where is your love? Don’t step away from this.
- Highlight your accomplishments. Don’t devalue them by crossing them off your list. It is demoralizing to see only what you still need to do. This goes for your shopping list as well as getting your degree.
- A good mix of reality and fantasy? Less rolling around in your mind, more playing out in life.
- It was a silly question – but asking the silly question let you know you were thinking about it the wrong way.
- It took that deadline to motivate you. Sometimes we need that outside factor.
- Don’t expect people to change because you showed them they were wrong. It is not that simple.
- Others do not determine your fate. You always have the choice of how you are going to live within the conditions you find yourself.
- You can look at the past and see how it could have been perfect. You can look to the future to see how you want it to be perfect. But you live and act today. It is messy – some things will go well, other things, not so much.
- One way to please people is to talk less and be more agreeable – not giving your opinions. After years of this, you will have little to say and no opinions of your own.
- Not comfortable with the idea that some people may not like you? That others may attack you if you open up to them? The funny thing is, people can still attack you when you are quiet and keep to yourself.
- In honoring melancholy you can hold off depression. Accept the sadness without judging life as bad.
- Anxiety can go up in a puff of smoke by involving yourself in the activity you have been avoiding.
- Responsibility checks your freedom from becoming arbitrary.
- Decisions are exclusionary. There will be regret and longing for the direction not taken. Sit with that regret for a moment. See if there was any value in the direction not taken, then move on and continue the path you have begun.
- Acting. Stretching your self. Taking steps. It is what makes life interesting – to yourself and others.
Reggie E, MSW, CEAP, joined Empathia in 2005 as an EAP Counselor. Reggie has a master’s degree in Social Work as well as bachelor’s degrees in Philosophy and the Comparative Study of Religion from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Prior to a career change to social work, he worked in a variety of fields including banking, trucking and metal fabrication.
