accountability – Dancing in the rain!

TRUTH OR DARE

September 13, 2013September 13, 2013 michd7414 Comments

My friend Chris Thomas over at On the Light Side of Gamification posed some questions to me on my post Game called life. If you haven’t read the post check it out and you will see why he asked me these questions. I encourage everyone who reads this post to answer the same questions. Even if you are shy about posting the answers I think that they will really help you if you truly desire to be happy. I am a firm believer that everyone has obstacles in their lives but sometimes the biggest obstacle to our own happiness is the person we see when we look in the mirror. The happiest people in the world are those that build bridges and “get over it!” So take five minutes to truthfully answer the below questions, you may be surprised about what you learn about yourself.

I am listening to Mozart piano Concerto No. 23 while I type this. The grace and lightness of the piano is helping to even out my late night 711 coffee high.

If you don’t know what Gamification is don’t feel bad, neither did I before I became acquainted with Chris. In short Gamification is the use of game thinking and game mechanics to engage users in solving problems. Gamification is used in applications and processes to improve user engagement, return on investment, data quality, timeliness, and learning. You can learn more HERE

Chris is an enthusiastic, engaging and conscientious young man. I am pleased whenever he visits Dancing In The Rain and leaves me imaginative comments. He has endured and overcome a lot in his young life and he is someone I admire. Chris has been very supportive of my blog so I was pleased that he posed these tough questions to his audience and to me directly.

I think we all need to be idealists and realists. Idealists when we think about our aims and about the world we define our aims on. Realists when thinking about the steps we need to do to get there. You see, Idealism without Realism is dreaming and Realism without Idealism is dry, uninspired, never innovative, never leading to a better world, simply good work. Only by dreaming and breaking down your dreams to realistic steps you will really make a difference and enjoy a meaningful activity -Chris Thomas

HERE GOES

1.What are my personal aims?

My personal aim at the moment is to find a good balance in my life so that I give as much to myself as I do everyone else. Therefore I will be happier, less stressed and accomplish more of the things that are important to my me and my well-being! I would like to be more active, take care of our money better and finish something that I started years ago that is very dear to my heart.

2.What are things that I like to do?

I love to spend quality time with my family, read and write and invest time in the relationships that bring me joy.

3.What are things that I don’t like to do?

I do not like to put the laundry away, wash floors, pick up after my kids constantly and I don’t like to tire myself out getting stressed about these things. I also dislike driving in roundabouts (rotaries, traffic circles) which makes driving certain places a challenge because they intimidate me and I will avoid them whenever possible!

4.What am I good at?

I am good at writing (I believe) I find being honest very freeing. I am also good at supporting people and things I care about and putting people at ease in stressful situations.

5.What am I bad at and do I want to change something about it?

I am bad at keeping promises I make to myself due to my terrible time management and I am making efforts to change! I am also bad at hole punching which my former boss and friend likes to remind me. I have no desire to change this because I never desired to me a master hole puncher and every time she punches a hole in a piece of paper she will think of me fondly.

6.When do I feel happy?

I feel happy most of the time but mostly when I have fulfilled my commitments and everyone around me is pleased and happy.

7.What is it then that makes me feel happy?

Being present in my life, managing the details so that everything gets done and my family is satisfied and I am content. Spending time with family, friends and writing!

8.Is there any chance to trigger the reason for that happiness more often (e.g. by changing your workplace, join your working place community (or found it) or invest more time in a particular spare time activity)?

There is definitely a chance for me to be happier more. I need to be accountable to myself, keeping promises I make to me, managing my time better so that I get to do all the things I want to do and saying no to things that I do not have the time to take on. Being productive makes me very happy but I often let my noisy brain slow me down. I often plan too many things at once resulting in me getting emotionally tired!

9.When do I wish to change something and why do I think this change is impossible instead of trying to go for the change?

I don’t think anything is impossible. The word itself says “I’m Possible”, Audrey Hepburn Quote. As I said above I am my biggest roadblock. I need to hold myself accountable for making the necessary changes to make all the pieces of my life fit together like a completed puzzle. I have made some steps, the biggest one was quitting my job 15 months ago but there are other changes that I need to make. I am fully aware that nobody is responsible for my happiness but me!

10.When do I blame others and could I not do something about solving the problem myself if it is that important to me?

I try not to blame others for my problems except if they are not contributing their share, therefore making my job more difficult. I have high expectations and I feel a responsibly towards things (for e.g. my volunteer work) I think this is a weakness for me because I sometimes bite off more than I should be comfortably chewing and inevitably my “time management” goes out the window.

Chris’s original post HERE

Game Called life

August 18, 2013April 20, 2016 michd7433 Comments

I had one of those days. Not only am I sick to death of Miley videos, jokes, references, tweets, and innuendo, as well as devastated by the events happening in Syria I have had my own personal struggles in the form of a hormonal teenage daughter, a truck that won’t start and a husband that is hours away for the next ten days. All things considered I know that I have it so much better than a lot of people. My husband may be away but he offered to drive home to my rescue. For those of you who know me, you are aware that as much as I may think I want to be rescued it would make me feel weak and needy. I have the most wonderful friends that jumped at the chance to come to my rescue and gave me something I didn’t even know I needed. A moment to breathe, to laugh, to share a glass of wine with friends. A moment to feel like it was OK to be something other then a wife and a mother. Sometimes I need to just be me. Also, my teenage daughter really is amazing. However, she is sometimes an emotional ball of hormones that she doesn’t quite know how to handle and we are trying so hard to navigate a neatly painted line somewhere in-between crying and screaming. I am trying hard to raise a smart, capable and accountable young lady in a world full of entitled youth of Generation “I”

Recently I have been faced with that all too familiar struggle of trying to split 200% of myself between all the things that matter in my life. When one thing requires more attention I seem to lose my balance and the balls I am juggling come crashing down. I stand tall against whatever I am faced with in life but sometimes I feel like I am inevitably going to fall.

I know that a lot of people feel how I am feeling right now. Wondering how they can be everything they need to be to the people in their lives and still have enough left over for themselves. I know how important it is to take time for myself. If I were to give advice to any of my friends I would most definitely tell them that they are the most important person in their lives and they need to make the time for themselves. Giving advice is always the easy part.

It has been fifteen months since I quit my job to stay at home. My biggest fear was losing myself, being insignificant and dependent. I think my family has absolutely benefited from me being home but often I feel I am spending way too much time trying to convince them that I am not a maid. I am an involved parent, sometimes to the point that I am not the wife I would like to be or a good friend to myself. I am still figuring it all out. I don’t strive for perfection, just quiet imperfection and happiness. I pray sometimes and I still wish on stars.

My goal is laugh more, to steal time for myself to do the things that are important to me, to say no to things that I don’t have time for and that add stress that I don’t need. I want to experience the moment without worry or anticipation of the next. I want to be present and accounted for in my own life. I want to learn from my mistakes without holding myself in constant judgment. I want to expect less of people but quietly encourage more. I want to abandon the idea of who I think I should be and be the person I know I can be. I want to love more, and forgive things that weigh me down.

Here I go….wish me luck as I continue to play my hand at this game called life!

P.S. I also need to make more time for wine!!

Game Called Life (The Big C Main Title) by Leftover Cuties

It’s so hard to turn your life over
Step out of your comfort zone
It’s so hard to choose one direction
When your future is unknown
Is this some kind of a joke, will someone wake me up soon?
And tell me this was just a game we played, called life.
Are we, are we all really slaves?
By the hands of ourselves
id I really make all of those mistakes?
Am I really getting older?Then why do I feel so lost?
Is this some kind of a joke, will someone wake me up soon?
And tell me this was just a game we played, called life.
And at the end of the road, is there someone waiting?
Do I get a medal for surviving this long?
Is this some kind of a joke, will someone wake me up soon?
And tell me this was just a game we played, called life.
Is this some kind of a joke, will someone wake me up soon?
And tell me this was just a game we played, called life.

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Lost- Chronicles of a Mom with a teenage girl

July 31, 2013July 31, 2013 michd748 Comments

I have been absentee from my life for the last week because I have been lost. Lost in a web of pain, fear, memories. ..
I have a thirteen year old daughter who overnight went from being a sweet and loving young lady to being an angry, hateful, spiteful entitled animal.

She wants to push the boundaries that we as parents put in place to keep her safe and to shape her into a warm, smart, caring and accountable adult and that I completely understand but she refuses to accept any of the responsibilities that come with the freedom she longs for. I try very hard to understand. I remember the emotional turmoil and anger, I was a teenage girl. Hormones suck and friends understand better then I do, I get it.

I talk to her openly and candidly, I accept her friends, I allow her their constant presence in my house even though I often long for a quiet night. I ask only in return that she take responsibility for her friends. I am not a maid. When I clean up 20 water bottles with just sips out of them, popsicle wrappers, popsicle sticks, half eaten fruit swarming with fruit flies, slushies in the bathroom, dirty laundry everywhere I want to cry. I make deals, give ultimatums, believe the promises only to be disappointed on a daily basis. My sugar and spice and everything nice girl turns to fire and ice and won’t think twice about accountability or consequences if she is not getting her own way.

Don’t I have a responsibility as a parent to love her enough to make her see how important it is for her to respect herself and her family? Apparently not.

According to her friends mother I am wrong. I need to just accept it. What will be will be. That is basically what she said when she showed up at my door tonight with my daughter who had been missing for hours. I had called and messaged her with no response. As a parent if her child were here I would have let her know she was safe.

I had reached my tolerance level this afternoon when I asked my daughter to go. The blatant disregard for me became too much. Being cursed at, talked down to, told that she was going do whatever she wanted whenever she wanted.

Her friends talk to me. They are here for days on end. I know what lazy parenting is doing for them and it is nothing good.
I miss my little girl. I realize that I may lose her for a little bit because right now I need to be more of a parent and less of a friend. It is my responsibility to make sure she is safe, not for me to be popular with her. I need to teach her that bad actions have consequences, not rewards. Honestly is rewarded. Accountability, learn it. It is a lesson I will teach everyday. Love. I will love her to the ends of the earth no matter what, even the days when I don’t like her very much. I will teach her the importance of loving herself and being someone she can be proud of.

Maybe I won’t be cool or popular for awhile but I am tough, I will handle it. One day she will thank me, of that I am certain.

Tonight when she came home expecting a fight I approached her with compassionate grace. I will thank a dear friend for that advice.

I am sad and heartbroken but I showed her that I love her enough to care about the person she comes. Trust me it would be so much easier to turn a blind eye. Parenting is not the easy way out but I refuse to believe it is the wrong way.

One day I will comfort this beautiful girl when her own child breaks her heart into a thousand pieces and I hope that she will step up and be the person she was raised to be.

Goodnight friends,
the uncool mom

Expectant

July 18, 2013July 18, 2013 michd747 Comments

Daily Prompt: Flip Flop

Posted by michelle w.Think of a topic or issue about which you’ve switched your opinion. Why the change? Photographers, artists, poets: show us TRANSITION.

“I would rather be pleasantly surprised then fatally disappointed”

Julia Glass

This is a little tough because being a woman it’s my prerogative to change my mind and often so the gears in my brain are shifting rapidly through the brain files trying to find a suitable answer.

A topic I have struggled with greatly is “Expectations”

I don’t feel I have unreal expectations for people. I expect that people will try to do their best and be accountable to their roles and for their actions. I expect that people will do as they say they are going to do and keep their promises. I expect that if a situation arises that makes it impossible for them to fulfill a duty that they will make a reasonable effort to cover it. I expect that these “situations” will not arise frequently.
I expect that this is not to much to expect but I am wrong. When I place expectations on people I am continually disappointed.

I have decided that I am accountable only for my own actions and to fulfill my own roles. I am desperately trying not to place expectations on people. If I don’t expect you will and you don’t then I am not disappointed. That is your cross to bear. Have no fear for when the Zombies come they are looking to “eat brains” You’ll be safe huddled in the corner with all of your broken promises and unfulfilled tasks.

I am learning the word No. It’s a little foreign but I like the way it rolls off my lips. No I cannot do that. No I am sorry I have my own commitments. No you will have to find someone else.
No No No.

So in expecting less I will not end up doing more. I like this concept. Here’s to hoping (but not expecting) that it will work! Taking the leap…