Sacrifices

What is one major personal sacrifice you are willing to make this year in the service of the greater good? #Sacrifice

This question comes courtesy of Scott Barry Kaufman and the Tracking Wonder Quest 2017. #quest2017

When I first read this question Saturday, I didn’t think about the greater good, I started thinking about myself. Typical. But let’s continue down that path. Because there is a major hitch in my giddy-up. I did well for myself by being a type A(sshole) go-getter with a plan. I have always had more work opportunities than I can do, paying work, lots of it, I am a bona fide work-aholic. As a result, I’m 50 and have the security and funds to start a creative and artistic career.

In order to get there, I need to give up the very traits that got me to the starting line. I need to sacrifice the urge to beat myself and everyone else around me up about the money. It will be OK. There is enough $$ to get thru and enjoy this world. The work I do should be just enough to expand my horizons and keep me engaged in the world, not an onerous burden of keeping myself, the dogs, and my less-employed-money-grubbing partner in food. I need to learn lessons from my partner’s ability to lose himself in creating art, not beat him up and admonish him that he should be more anxious about making sure we earn more than we spend each day.

Breathing. Not surprisingly, I have a shitload of trouble breathing. The albuterol which opens my airways makes my heart race, which increases the anxiety, which puts me in a vicious loop of not sleeping because I can’t breathe then not sleeping because I’m jacked up. The albuterol is 18 cents a huff, and don’t you know I calculate that into the daily stress of living. “There’s another 18 cents I need to earn today,” I think each time I take a lung-opening puff. Which of course, is a constricting thought.

To engage and be present for the greater good, I first have to give up these limiting thoughts of keeping a ledger in my head. “There’s $3.50 spent on supper, I’d better go sit at the computer and earn $10.50 to make up for it.” That said, enough on this topic, I got work to do. Quilts to finish so some young boys can have new nursery decor. But I vow I’m going to be enjoying it and doing it from a space of love, instead of making it a nonsensical penny-counting endeavour.