Am I doing it wrong? and what is “it”?

I titled yesterday’s post … All who wander are not lost…. which is kind of funny for 2 reasons 1.  I didn’t talk at all about why I called it that and 2.  I think I was trying to convince myself that I wasn’t lost.  Let me try to explain….

I think I have mentioned before maybe 1,000,000 times that I am my own worst enemy, and that I am always in competition with myself.   While it is good to examine yourself and work on things that you would like to do better, I often forget that you can’t be the best mother, and friend, and employee, and so on and so on all at the exact same moment.  In order to excel at anything you have to give it time, practice, and focus.  It’s also helpful to have an end goal.  I don’t have an end goal.  My priority is to be that best at what I am doing at the moment I am doing it.

I feel like I am rambling, but I hope that in the end I make some sense.  Let me use friendship as an example.  Let’s say friend A shows up at my door crying at the same time I happen to be putting the finishing touches on a a project that I have been putting off for months.  My project is instantly forgotten and I go into the BEST friend mode I can.  That means I am listening to that one person, not reading facebook, not texting, not finishing my project etc.  My friend needs someone to listen, and that’s what I do.  Unfortunately, that means, my project doesn’t get finished.  I probably run out of time to call someone else back.  I may cancel upcoming plans etc etc.  By the time I am done listening and comforting my friend (which is important to me), the hours in the day have passed.

When I am by myself after that, I feel like I have not accomplished anything with my day.  Well at least not anything that I intended to.  My brain continues to spiral and I feel like a horrible friend to my other friends because I didn’t answer their calls, or I cancelled plans etc.  I call this focusing on the biggest fire.  For the last few months, ( to be honest for most of my life) this is how I prioritize each day.

I was talking with my friend Bob the other day, and he asked how I was doing with quitting smoking, losing weight, and my blog.  (all things that I told him were important to me the last time I saw him)  After I updated him that I had not lost any weight, and in fact had gained weight, that quitting smoking felt like someone was pulling my fingernails out one by one, and that I hadn’t touched my blog in months, he responded that I was the queen of excuses.

OUCH THAT STUNG!

But he was right to some degree.   Of course I hadn’t made any progress on those goals because I was busy focusing on other things that were important to me.  I’ve still been living my life, I have still been growing as a person, but I have not moved anywhere on the goals I stated.  What does that mean?

While I figure that out, I do have lots of stories to share as I mentioned before.  Some good some bad, and I am really looking forward to catching up with everyone, But I still can’t help but wonder if I’m doing it wrong.