know thy monsters

Since my divorce, I have a large plush Domo-kun that I cuddle with at night. Don’t judge me.

Related tangent: Two things are inevitable if I am tired enough to crash into bed immediately upon returning home from work … firstly, I will somehow manage to sleep in past five o’clock in the morning (my normal wakeup time), and secondly, I will wake up confused (it will take me a good ten minutes to figure out where I am … not fun).

Bearing the above in mind, cuddling with Domo-kun at night sets me up for injury. How? The first thing I will see with my hazy vision upon awakening in the morning is a red mouth full of pointy teeth. There is a strong chance of my fuzzy brain over-reacting to that. I get a scare that lasts for about twenty seconds – it promptly ends when I fall out of bed and hit my head on something. Hard. I will then realize I’ve just been frightened by my cuddly little monster.

Oh dear.

I reflect on my life a lot … I find what lessons I can from past choices in order to improve what I do with my future. In this process, I find many metaphors for life through little things in my day. Getting freaked out by Domo-kun upon occasion is no exception to this. I think everyone has a ‘cuddly little monster’ or two (or more) they cling to – bad habits, fears, unhealthy relationships, etc. We find comfort in what we know, even if it’s painful or hurtful, rather than to risk venturing into the unknown or something different than our norm. We climb back into bed each night and hold close these monsters, feeling soothed by their familiar presence and lulled into unconsciousness from the reality we’re cradling in our arms.

Food for thought, cooked up for my own brain more than others, but I thought I’d share the love. I need to think about what monsters I take to bed each night, and how to send them packing …

what do you want most?

I keep up with the blogs of friends about once every couple of weeks or so, and recently found an older post on Daniel’s blog that really pricked at my heart. I would encourage you to read through that entry, and consider these questions he poses:

Is this what you want now or what you want most? There is a very large difference between the two… does this, whatever this is, take you towards what you want now or what you want most? If your most is worth it, then you will change your now’s.

In reading through everything he wrote and pondering over those questions, so much clarity came from thinking in terms of what I want now versus what I want most in life. There are a lot of hard questions I’ve had to answer over the past year or so, and my answers to those all come back to what I want most … the things I am willing to pursue over other, more immediate things. Those things I want most I am willing to make sacrifices for, because they will bring the most joy to me in the end. There’s a liberation to be found in knowing what you want out of life, what your goals are. It makes all other decisions that much easier to choose when the time comes.