Call me "Aqueduct"

I have always always been guilty of having the "If Only" mentality.

It comes easily to me to want to move on to the next thing. If you've read pretty much any of my other posts, you know that I love love love new things and experiences. So my weakness in this area is to think, "If only I could just start something new. If only I could try doing this one thing. THEN I might feel like I've accomplished something. I might feel less stagnant. If only, if only. When will my life & circumstances change, when will I get to have a new adventure?"

Dangerous ground for sure. It steals my focus, it steals my joy.

Not to say that striving for something - having goals - having dreams and ambitions, is a bad thing. Actually I would say it's more unhealthy to not have those things. But with me at least, I get so very swept up. I lose sight of the present.

Even when it's something that is bothering me [not necessarily just some place I saw and instantaneously wanted to go there], my first instinct is to drown out the thoughts that keep me awake at night. Try something new to distract myself. That doesn't stop the dreams, or God talking to me about it, or Him letting me know what He thinks in said dreams...But it definitely affects my willingness to listen.

I'm always ready to try what's next, I'm always ready to tell myself that I'm discontent so the next thing will be better.

And I LIKE that about myself. I LIKE that I have a sense of adventure and readiness to try something new.

But when I use it as an escape, or a distraction, or try to make it fit in that hole that it just isn't shaped for, it is detrimental and ugly.

I love God. No question. And I know that He is the ultimate fulfillment. I know that urge that I get is of God because He created me, and I know that He's gonna use this part of me for His Kingdom, but that doesn't mean I get to misuse it. That doesn't mean that I get to swing to the extreme end of the pendulum and call it all good because it's just a part of who I am.

BUT - a bragging moment for me - I am getting better. Better at dealing with situations and not just pretending them away - that's how explosions happen later on. Not worth it. I am getting better and looking my fears in the face and heading right into the fray of all those scary, icky emotions.

It's easy to smile all of the time. It's easy to turn a blind eye to the things I don't want to see. The things I don't want to know or care about, the things that scare or anger me. It's easy to live in ignorance.

It's super super hard to live a life outside of myself, to live with the intention of living attentively. I mean, they say that ignorance is bliss, but that doesn't explain why people consumed with themselves and ignorant to the needs of others tend to be so very miserable. I don't want to be one of those people.

Not that I really even have that opinion of myself, I don't consider myself a scrooge or anything, but I am definitely guilty of some pretty thick walls of self protection. I think that that is a form of selfishness that can become pretty severe when unchecked. If everyone lived behind their walls, our world would freeze up. It'd be like putting up billions of walls up in the ocean, separating the water into little segments. Nothing would grow or change. There would be no progress.

I refuse to be one of those big brick dams. I want to be a channel for life - And life abundantly at that!

God's got His work cut out with me, but He's a pretty neat dude and I'm an almost always willing subject so I have faith in this little construction project.

It's never too late to change <3