To be completely honest I would have to say that if I do not change routines, step out of patterns, deviate from the norm and adventure into unknown territory from time to time THAT will be the reason that I find myself in need of the surrender I have been speaking about so much lately.

There is something to say for a chance to see different places, people and to do things that you either have not done previously or, perhaps, just have not considered in awhile. In the “life is short so live it” department I find myself looking for places to travel and reasons to look forward to each of the days that I am living. One by one and one at a time. Granted, we are in situations that would lend to routine. School, work… even relationships can be prisons IF we allow them to be. Even within these (and any other routine), however, we can look for and eventually find some way to look at or even DO what it is we are doing to spice it up.

Sounds like couples therapy, doesn’t it?

I am not above admitting that I am coming out of a rut. I worked too much and participated in the same routines endlessly when I was both in and out of the job. Being in a rut does NOT mean that I am in a bad situation. It isn’t about the job or the relationships. It means that I am not paying attention or embracing the challenges within the situations. It means that I am doing too much of one thing and not enough of some others. Nobody should be too busy that they cannot find a part of each day to celebrate the life they are living and the people that they are living it with. That’s healthy. That’s absolutely necessary or we will become short-sighted in the point of it all.

But then, naturally, there is always surrender.

Travel is my favorite sort of change. It takes me completely out of the patterns of a daily routine. It takes me to places I have not seen or have not seen in awhile. It allows me new experiences, new relationships, new adventures, new pictures, new words and new energy.

But even when I am not traveling I am looking for ways to show myself new patterns and to break up the need to feel regulated and obliged to do certain things in certain ways at all times. I am not skirting responsibility by any means… but I am also taking a lot of the “edge” off of the need to feel tied to every order around me as if it was going to be the loss of a cure for cancer if not done in right away.

This weekend I am entertaining my 16-going-on-17 nephew in town from Washington D.C. It is something that I look forward to because it is so out of the realm of normal for me. I am going to do what he wants and offer my own suggestions. In days gone by I would have looked at this differently. I would have enjoyed the experience… but only to a point. I would have also discovered myself in a resentment because I could NOT do the things that I would normally do in my weekend routine. That character did not work…. he wasn’t as happy a person as he could be as a result. I, on the other hand, realize (through learning) that the adventures of change and difference offers us that wider range of experience and a larger playing field for the better offer of results to fill the pages of however it is we desire to document it all.

More experience, more things to write about, take pictures of, film and talk about at the water cooler. If you still have a water cooler, that is.

This weekend change something you are doing. Drive a different route. Go to a new restaurant. Hike a different trail. Go to a new meeting. See a new city. Visit an old friend. I can almost guarantee that you will start off your new week in a much better place. It might even to encourage you to take the adventure concept there as well.

Be Happy. Be Well. Be.

There are people in the world that do not embrace change. It is a challenge and a roadblock to a pattern that provides comfort and shelter. I am not one of these people, as much as it seems some may think.

… and I’m fine with that because I can only continue to do my best out there in the world and within myself. But there lies the rub… because there is a world out there that is not always going to understand, see, or even care that this is the case. I get that, and again because I have learned that others reactions to me is more about themselves, I accept.

The fact remains that we are given pivotal signs in our paths that provide us with the clues, information or outright knock over the head that there is something that can or should be done. With most, that does not mean the sign will be heeded. For many it will not even be seen. For weeks now I have seen things that have been screaming at levels that are hard to ignore. I examine, I consider and I wonder and weigh the possibility of such signs. What do they mean? What could they mean? What do I want them to be about?

Some would tell you that the first thought is the correct one. The trick is to know what that first thought was before the mind over-analyzes everything that follows. Fortunately I am well aware of what my instincts are saying and it is strangely becoming more realistic and less scary to consider the leap that should and will be made.

I love change. I have shifted my very existence on at least five different parts of my life. I have altered my life to the point of referring to myself in past tense… as if two separate human beings were being discussed. I have altered jobs by firing myself and trusting the experience would guide me towards a different and more enlightening chapter (which has always been the case.) I have moved in complete sweeps of all that I know. I have experienced deaths that have shifted my very core as a living soul on a planet that will never fully give you what you expect.

One of those shifts is upon me. I am not complete with the decision of timing … or if the decision will be mine at all. But it is in my sights. I have seen the signs and have read them correctly. I am excited. Because although some may not see it… I love change because it keeps me on my toes.

Bring it on. I’m ready. I am not sure that I could be any more ready.

Be Happy. Be Well. Be.