half a**

Do you ever feel like you are doing everything half ass?

I'm a lover of doing and loving many things and sometimes that makes me a multitasking nightmare.  I'm reading more and more these days about the importance of uni-tasking (one task at a time), or focusing on one goal or purpose.

My question is what if you don't know your one goal or purpose?

What if you think you are a professional health care provider of children with heart defects, dysrhythmias and dysautonomia (fainters, POTS, etc). However, what if you only do this part-time? Does that mean you really aren't a professional?

What if you think you are a mother of two wonderful, healthy, fun kids, but some nights you are counting down the minutes until bedtime for those two so that the real fun/work of the night begins (lying in bed and finishing that book, or watching a movie, or working on writing-that just doesn't seem to get done when you are making dinner, helping with homework, and reading to kids before bed).  Does this count down until their sleeping hours make me less of a mom?

What if you think you are best friends with your husband (aka coach), but you can't count the number of times the two of you have had a decent/adult conversation (no not the "what do you need me to pick up at the grocery store" type talks) on one hand during the last few months?  Does that mean your marriage is in jeopardy or that you are a bad wife?

What if you think you are a writer and have this dream to write a book about accomplishing something "big", but you just can't get the writing done or when you do write you just doubt yourself and this "story" idea even more.  Does that mean you are just a wanna-be?

What if you think you are a reader and you think you read a lot, but then you meet a person who has three kids, works full time, and read 200 books over the last year (my goal of 90 this year seems small in comparison).  Or what if you look at what other's have read and some of the authors you've never even heard of- does that mean I'm not really a reader?

I should be writing a post about my March reads- since it is the 9th of April, but alas when I was walking today at the indoor track and listening to "Z: A novel of Zelda Fitzgerald" by Therese Anne Fowler I was hit by this line of questioning, because Zelda Fitzgerald was being asked if "she was stuck" by her artists, poet friend Natalie (go figure).  Natalie was referencing if Zelda was "stuck" figuring out who she was. This line of questioning came about because Zelda was stating she felt like she was doing everything half-way.   Natalie asked Zelda are you a dancer, a mother, a writer, a painter, a wife?  Zelda seems to have the same issue as I do- a lot of different life passions.  Her friend Natalie was trying to tell Zelda nicely she needed to figure out what life path she was going to choose. The author of course has fictitiously sketched this conversation, for we don't know if it really occurred between Zelda and her friend, but this conversation seemed oh but too realistic for me.    It struck me that many of us have several life passions and several life paths and sometimes the paths overlap and other times they veer away from each other making the journey tough and the terrain challenging.

I don't know if I agree with Natalie, Zelda's friend, when she put Zelda to the test of deciding.  I don't want to decide just one path, but I do want to experience the journey not feeling like I'm doing things half ass. 

I think you conquer the half ass feeling by realizing that you can't do it all "full on" at all times. We have to pick and choose when to go all out and with which life path.  I get that we/I need to be more mindful when doing specific activities to get a more full-out experience and feel fully engaged.  I think I'm all of the above: professional, mother, wife, friend, writer and reader and in order not to feel "stuck" I will embrace being all of these different things, but at the same time taking a breath, taking it all in, and letting the paths of life go where they may.  I'm hoping I will then feel like my being is less half ass.