New Year, New Why

I don’t know about you, but I find myself every year starting Day 1 with a “Can Do” attitude, but by Day 31, nothings really changed. Here’s my goal this year. No big “plan”, no work out routine, no book list… I want to find my new “Why”. A “why” is your reason, why you’re doing what you’re what you’re doing. Your response when you mentally question why you haven’t ran away from life yet… “Because… enter why here“

We all have a “why” for the things we do. We just may not like the why. “Because I have to…” That’s an ugly one. No ownership of the hard. No honoring of the choices that are being made with that “why”.. Just pure gritty suck. And sometimes that’s ok, nothing wrong with a good “because I said so” right? But if that’s your “why” for everything.. that sucks.

The hard I choose

This year my why is going to be “Because this is the hard I’m choosing”.. Here’s my thought process. There are lots of things about my life that are “hard”. Working, homeschooling, homemaking, marriage, parenting, budgeting… and to do them all in collaboration with 4 small boys and a husband.. HARD.. But to me it’s a better hard then the alternatives.

• I could stop working: let my bedside skills go to the wayside, take a huge chunk of our budget out, and the little bit of adult human interaction I get goes away.
• I could send my kids to school/daycare: send my kids off for 40+ hours a week, paying someone else (a total stranger I might add) to pour into my children and praying they do an ok job.
• I could give up homemaking: let the laundry, dishes, dirt, chaos pile up. Dinner? meh pizza again is fine – tomato sauce counts as a vegetable right? or is it a fruit? Life would be chaos, but at least I wouldn’t be mopping and wiping counters everyday.
• I could file for divorce and run off to Cabo right now: That wouldn’t cause lasting damage to my children… right? They’d be fine. It wouldn’t be traumatizing to myself or my husband to go through a divorce with 4 kids and a life intertwined together (all sarcasm btw)
• I could say “screw the budget” and start wracking up consumer debt: You thought life wasn’t stressful enough? try adding debt to the party.. yikes.

My point is, we all pick our hard. Hard isn’t a bad thing, it’s what gets us what we want. Anything worth having is worth working hard for. So this year, I’m consciously going to pick my hard, because at least it’s MY hard.

What’s your “why”?