Reevaluating the Idea of 'Having it All'

This Friday my next door neighbor threw a brunch for my 37th birthday, complete with some tasty champagne, great food, and good conversation. One of the topics revolved around a recent Oprah show (it´s amazing what I get to catch on television when I am nursing my daughter in the middle of the night!). The show focused on the idea that the energy that you put off is what you get back. Now, it went in way more depth than that, but for the point of this article, that´s all I need to mention.

We started talking about this idea and the conversation turned into one about how people perceive the things that happen in their lives and the way that this perception ultimately determines whether these people are happy with their lives or unhappy with their lives. For instance, a certain thing can happen to two different people-a sickness, a robbery, a flood in the home. The first, having a positive outlook, is not happy with the situation but deals with it and does not cast blame, make excuses, or complain for months to come. The second person is unhappy, blames others, and uses it as a conversational piece-a negative one-for months to come.

The next day I took my daughter and one of her little friends to the park and as I was watching them play I realized that we can have everything that we want in life if we do one thing-change the idea of what is "having it all.´ By thinking about that conversation the other day, and the idea that we shape our lives by the way that we look at things, it´s easy to see how we can look at what we have and think, I have it all! Even if we do not own that fantastic home, drive that great car, or take a few exquisiute vacations each year. It is also easy to see that we can look at our same lives and think, Why can´t I have more? That fantastic home, that great car, those exquisitve yearly vacations.

So why is this my topic today? Because I believe it really applies to our lives as working mothers. Some of us feel angry that we have to work each day. We want to stay at home with our kids but we can´t. So we got to work bregudgingly and hate our days away.

Others of us are upset because of our home situations, whether we are single, in a bad marriage, not able to afford what our neighbor owns, not able to send our kids to the best schools . . . you know the list. We hear our girlfriends talking about things that they wish they could have or do, overlooking all of the beautifl things that they have at home. Or we listen to them talk about what they do have and we wonder why we can't have the same.

My message today is this: If you are stuck in the rut of feeling sorry for yourself, and of feeling as though you should have more, stop and reevaluate. Stop thinking about what you wish you had and count the blessings for the things that are right in front of you. And remember if you are unhappy in your life, your children will sense this. And children are not going to understand that you are unhappy with what you don´t have; they will believe that you are unhappy with what you do have, and that they are somehow the cause of your discontent.

If you are not where you thought that you wanted to be by this point in your life, reconsider, and change your idea of what "all´ is. It'll be the best thing that you do all week!

Happy Hump Day working mommies!