Category: motivation

motivation, Life

Front Porch Sittin’

Sondra Jennings

We got a little rain today. The first little bit in a couple weeks. It was a welcome sight as it cooled the temps off some and rinsed all the dust off my car. Bear and I sat outside on the porch watching the rain fall. He would dart out into it and run just as fast back under the cover of the porch. Me? I stayed under the cover, not willing to get wet.

And that’s basically how I’ve been living life for the past 40-something years. Safe on the porch. Dry. Boring. I like the sound of adventure, but I never get off the porch. I like watching the rain fall, but I don’t want to get wet. Why leave the comfort of my lawn chair?

Because life starts at the end of your comfort zone. -Neale Donald Walsch

Recently, I was talking to a couple friends about life. One is my age and the other is 17. Our perspectives are very different. We adults look back at life and wish we had done some stuff differently. The 17 year-old looks forward, with plans and goals and dreams of what she wants out of life. Are we wrong? Is she naive? No. Neither of those is true. 

My old friend mentioned something about picking your adventure and I immediately thought about those “choose your adventure” books we used to check out at the library when we were kids. You read a bit and then came to a choice. “If you choose to go out in the rain, go to page 21.” “If you choose to turn around and go back in the house, turn to page 35.” “If you choose to sit on the porch and watch it rain, the end. You’re done. Life has passed you by.”

I loved those books. If you made the wrong choice and your character ended up dead, you just went back to the page with the choices and chose another page. No harm, no foul. You made a mistake the first time, but it’s erased and you can make another choice and pretend that the other one never happened. That’s cheating, right? But wouldn’t life be so much better if it happened that way?

Maybe. But maybe not. If you could go back and erase all the mistakes you ever made, would you? I doubt it. Did they cause hurt and suffering? Undoubtedly so. Did you learn from them? Most of us did. The only things I would go back and change were the things I didn’t do. The places I didn’t go. The chances I didn’t take. Except for skydiving…I still probably wouldn’t go skydiving.

Life, motivation, photography

A Walk in the Rain

Sondra Jennings

It’s been raining here a lot lately. It’s cold for mid-May. And muddy. It’s been hard to plan camping trips on the weekends. It’s been nearly impossible to do any outside projects. And since I’m a preschool teacher, I have an even greater reason for disliking rain–inside recess. Ever tried keeping a bunch of 3, 4, and 5 year-olds contained in a classroom for hours? It’s not fun.

The end of this very challenging school year is in sight, and I’m tired. So despite the rain yesterday, I took a walk. I even had a couple furry companions go with me. We had no destination. We didn’t go anywhere special. We just walked up the driveway, trying to stay out of the mud and wet grass (I dislike wet socks and shoes).

I noticed this flower on my walk and had to take a picture. It reminded me that despite the consequences or circumstances we find ourselves surrounded by, we can rise up, square our shoulders, and stand tall.

Did you hear me? Rise up. No one can hold you down without your permission. No one can keep you down without your permission. Rise up and stand tall, whatever your circumstances. You got this.

It might be raining right now, but take a walk anyway. Let the rain wash away all the mud and the gunk. Let it refresh your soul.

🌼 Sondra

motivation

Monday Motivation

Sondra Jennings

It’s Monday morning. Again. But it’s not any ordinary Monday morning because today I got up early to write. I’m sitting in a dark, empty cemetery, watching the sun come up and writing. Sounds morbid, I guess, but also very motivating.

It’s motivating because no matter how long you live, life is short. Even if you get 100 years, which is good by today’s standards in the US, it’s still too short to do, see, and be all the things that you want to do, see, and be. And if you have idle years where you are just coasting through, well, it’s even shorter.

I’ve done that. So many years I have done that. I have been that girl just coasting through. I haven’t done what I wanted to do or gone where I wanted to go. And I am nowhere near who I want to be. So many times, I’ve settled because going for what I really wanted seemed hard. It seemed risky, and I’ve never been good with risks.
But this morning I woke up early because I’m ready to take a risk.

Ever since I learned to read, I’ve wanted to be a writer. It’s documented in yearbooks and other memory books from my childhood. When someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said “writer” (after the brief time in my early life when I said “singer”). It’s why I paid attention in English class. Because, let’s face it, why else would you pay attention in English class? It’s why I love to read. I’m not just reading for pleasure, I’m researching for what I want to do with my life. I’ve put a lot of effort into this thing already, but then I just let it set idle. Why would I do that?

Because I was scared. Even in this day of blogs and the internet and self-publishing and all the other ways to get my stuff out there, I was scared to do it. It was too hard and too risky and so I just didn’t. I went to work as a preschool teacher every day instead. Which, by the way, is one of the riskiest things a person could do with their life. There are tears and snot and mysterious wetness and weird smells that come from these little people. And they have no filter. They tell you exactly what they think and they don’t feel bad about it. Risky business.

So this morning, I woke up early to write before work because I’m safe. I can do this. I’m sitting in the dark cemetery because it reminds me how short life is and it motivates me to start doing and going and being me. If you could ask the people whose lives these headstones represent what they regret from their lives, I think the most popular answer would be that they regret what they didn’t do more than what they did.
I could be wrong, but what if I’m not?

–Sondra