Relief, courtesy of the future

So, a sunny beauty of a spanking new year, and I have found a principle that I will gladly and whole-heartedly cling to. It helps me balance out the fear of choosing the wrong way in life, never being sure of what is really right and wrong, and what is important and what is not. Here it is:

I will live and act in a way that I would accept from my own children.

It’s not technically a new year’s resolution, since I have been breaking the thought in since mid-November, but I hope it stays in my consciousness for as long as it helps me. I’ve asked a few friends what they think and so far all of the surveyed have said that it sounds pretty grounded (which feels assuring!).

This past year I’ve wrestled mentally with a number of dilemmas of priority, both in work, family and all sorts of relationship matters, and it’s been ups and downs with some very cathartic downs. Especially re-evaluating whether my life principles and my familial faith match up has been a painful process, but finally this accept-of-my-children-thought fell into me and it was like… landing after a long fall. (Oof.) Suddenly I realized that I’ve always kept a double standard for myself and everyone else. Or more like a quadruple standard, depending on what I’ve expected myself, my friends, my family, my colleagues and people in general to live up to. (OH.)

So of late, focusing on what I would accept as good (or at least forgivable) as a parent responsible for someone else’s upbringing, has suddenly made it much less frightening to determine whether I am a good or bad (or forgivable) person, and more importantly to be responsible for deciding what I choose to be regardless of the multiple standpoints I am part of. I am the product of everything that has ever happened to me, so it’s only natural that I eventually have to make sense of it all myself. In the end, I want my children to be able to tap into the spiritual strength and comfort that a faith can bring, without being unconscious of where their actions, wants, needs and choices come from. Before I can teach them that, I have to go through it myself.

The extra time spent with family during the holidays gave me an opportunity to have an interesting conversation with my Mom, who with loving concern keeps an ever-skeptical eye on my doings. She said that for her, life came in very clear phases that meant that it was very easy to prioritize. Studies first, then lifelong relationships. She said that mixing the two stages distracts you from doing your utmost at the right stage. I’m not sure I agree that this is the whole answer, but I have a lot to gain by accepting her point because my life to date has been very much the opposite – as mixed as possible.

Be as it may, I feel comparatively more ready than ever, now that I can forgive myself a lot of past angsts and relieve myself of similar ones in the future.

So I would like to thank my future children for the peace of mind they’ve brought me, even if they turn out to be no more than a brainchild. (In which case I will forgive them wholeheartedly.)