Wow, so for some reason, I have been lucky enough to find someone in the world who has a fabulous knack of sending me the right messages at the right time to help pick me up. I have no idea how she does it as the messages obviously aren't for ME (she sends to over 5000 people a month) but it's uncanny how what she writes seems to speak directly about whatever it is that I'm currently stressing over.

Today I tried to write an entry, and later erased it as it had turned into a complete whine/bitch fest (nothing that I would want to read again) about my life. I am not sure what sparked it, but a general sense of boredom with my career, frustration with my lack of organization and time-management skills, and the fact that I got to feast my eyes on some more travel logs from Jenelle and heard that another high school friend was taking some time off from life and moving to London, England, all finally collapsed on my head and I was fairly and completely depressed.

A lot of what I often feel stems from the fact that something is missing from my life (perhaps just a general FOCUS?), and trying to fill it up with volunteer activities, classes, work projects, etc. isn't helping, infact, it's just making me tired and stressed out. I am starting to come to terms with the fact that I am never going to be one of those people who can handle doing 15 different major activities every week, plus juggling friends and work and family and still managing to clean the house and walk the dog. It won't happen, it makes me miserable to try, so I might as well give in and relax a bit. The part I haven't figured out is if I'm supposed to sit in my yard like an old maid forever or if there's some magical "thing" (interest, talent, club, activity, what?) that once I find it, will fit into that hole, and everything will fall into place. I'll be surrounded by a few very close friends who share my interests, I'll have time and energy to devote to my "family life" and relationship, I'll do the laundry and wash the dishes and walk the dog and still have hours to spare..

Anyway, so as I was feeling low, and once again hitting the same brick wall with regard to fixing it (surfing the web on house-swaps to Australia only serves to compound my sense of 'grief' over living in Gatineau suburbia), I got my message... The theme of it was judging for yourself, what is enough in your life. Not as a whole, but really, if you break everything down - do I have enough to wear? Do I have enough to eat? Do I have enough space, a big enough home? What about my view of success? What is enough success? What is enough in my relationships?

When I start to think about it, and she mentions this as well, for many of the 'categories' I go through, it seems that instead of thinking I don't have enough, I reach the opposite conclusion: I have too much. It's quite a profound thing for me to really ask myself if I have "enough" because I often fall prey to the 'grass is always greener' syndrome, especially when it comes to looking at what other people my age have or are doing.

I do have MORE than enough to eat - we throw out and compost almost half of what we buy, I have, for the most part, too much to wear (I know this because there are items in my closet that never get worn at all), I have too much art stuff - I never create anything because there's just too many options and too many unfinished projects sitting around, I have more than enough space in our house (we have one 10x20 room that we have one shelf, one table and the dog bed in - crazy!), and finally, I have too much to worry about right now, so much that I can't focus on any one thing and see it through, or enjoy it.

On the side of not having enough, I think a lot of my 'shortages' are a direct result of the overloads elsewhere. If I had a more lenient schedule, with a relaxed lifestyle, I might have more time and energy for friendships and my relationship. If I threw out the old ugly clothing I no longer wear, I'd have space in my closet to see the things I do own that I forget to wear, and I'd know better what to buy. If I bought less groceries for specific meals, and had the time to make them, I wouldn't have a shortage of good food and money to pay for it.

The other part is success. That one is tough for me. How much is 'enough' when it comes to my success? In friendship? In relationships? In my career? Family life? I don't know... That's where I'll have to do some thinking.

Anyway, the point was that, as I've often ranted, we live in a consumer-based society. Waverly quoted that if we were to go back to what we were consuming 17 years ago, we'd only have to work an average of 5.8 hours a day. If we went back to the 40's it'd be even less. Apparently, we now consume 12 times more than we did in the 20's. Back then, they were just figuring out how to trigger a desire to buy more than what you need. And in perfecting it, they created me, ha... It's up to us to figure out how much is enough and stop when we've reached that. Only then, I think, will we find peace and happiness in our free time. :)

Anyway, thanks again to Waverly, she's an angel in disguise...

S