My name is Jude. The name is biblical and if you are a Catholic it is also a Saint. St. Jude, patron saint of hopeless cases. Ok I can buy into that considering I feel like a hopeless case. Hey Jude is also the name of one of the most popular Beatles songs ever. The 1st lyric of the tune is "Hey Jude, don't make it bad. Take a sad song and make it better." Seems like I have spent a good deal of my life taking that sad song and trying to make it a better sad song. Apparently that was not what Paul McCartney meant when he wrote the song. So again I find myself lost but humming a Beatles tune.
I am trying to find some answers. I feel like I got life wrong. I totally missed the point. I bought into the whole idea of life is your job, make money, buy shit, be happy. Yeah that is totally not working for me. So now I am trying to wipe the slate clean and find a better set of directions.
I will be using this blog to document my journey. I will share stories and try to document things I have felt are good directions. That take me to a good space. I am claiming right now that I don't have the answers!! But I am looking for some and maybe the answers I find will help you.
If you have something enlightening to post or maybe you have an answer that has helped you, please share. I made the 1st step. I wrote my first entry. Let the journey begin.........................which way was I supposed to go?
Jude,
ReplyDeleteIf it makes you feel better, I'm there with you. Same situation....same focus....same "missing something". So, like you I am here pondering the what's next phase. I can say that I'm not in it for the money anymore - I want to do something fun. I spent my 20's trying to prove myself....my 30's justifying that I was right and should be doing what I was doing....and slam, the day before I turned 40 the world I knew came crashing down.
So...I could sit here and wallow, but I liken this to a journey...a new decade to figure out the fun side of life and what that all means. If you're Dorothy, I'll be your Toto and we can do this in lock-step.
Show me the wizard....
Larry L.
Define "lost". Do you just not know where you're heading, or do you not know how you got where you are? Is it because you can't see the road ahead, worried about stubbing your toes on the rocks or having them drive through your foot as you step?
ReplyDeleteNext questions: Where would you like to end up, if the choice was yours? What parts of your life now feel "wrong"? What would you go back and change, if someone gave you the opportunity?
I found the answers in the manual...but not all of them. AND I found more questions in there than can fit in my head. But I wouldn't trade that manual for anything, because I learned that I don't *need* to have the answers. All I have to do is trust my Parent to take me where He will. He'll set my feet between the rocks, as long as I let Him. When I try to take control, that's when I stumble. That's one of the hardest things I ever had to learn how to do, and I'm nowhere near good enough at it...to let Him drive.
BUT...I also learned that when you ask Him, He answers...the trick is in waiting for the answer, in learning how to listen for it, and in accepting it when it comes, because it doesn't happen in *our* time but His, it's often hard to hear His voice (especially today, when we're all talking and nobody's listening), and the answer isn't always the one we were hoping for.
I don't know if any of this helps or hinders, Jude, but it's what I got tonight anyway. :) You know where to find me if I'm just not making any sense.
-Tony Lavoie
Hi Jude,
ReplyDeleteI think reaching 40 and having a midlife crisis can make you look at your life, and think where the hell am I, and I am not anywhere I thought I'd be in my life. That is what happened to me at 40. There are a couple of gifts though to reaching that stage. It gives you the opportunity to look at your life with a microscope, and figure out what parts of your life do not fit, and make changes for the future. You may have to continue to work for corporate America to pay the bills for awhile, but you can keep soul searching and dreaming about what you want to do. When you know what you want to do, start making plans and steps you need to take to get you there, and put yourself in touch with people who can help you get there. Our lives are a work in progress. Maybe never quite finished.
I hope this helps.
Linda Marshall
@ Larry- glad you are coming along for the ride. Also why do your analogies involve me in a dress?
ReplyDelete@ Tony- I am lost in the sense that I feel like I got it all wrong and not sure where to go next. I want to do good things and live up to the full potential God wants of me.
@ Linda thanks for sharing. Yeah I have accepted this is midlife crisis and I am trying to make sense of it all. Hopefully I can keep this blog funny and entertaining as well as thought provoking.
Thanks to everyone who took time to read
Hiya Jude,
ReplyDeleteI know exactly how you're feeling - been there many times in the decades since I was 40. Many (perhaps MOST) of us wander through life without the guidance of a GPS of any kind. Some find solace in slogans like "Do the next RIGHT thing" or "Do unto others...." etc. And if those help, great!
One book (now amongst the lost) that I found comforting is a book titled, "All You Can Do Is All You Can Do But All You Can Do Is Enough". Still available, I believe, but much cheaper in 'used' form.
Hang in there and know that there are always others out here willing to support.
Love always, Dad