How many of you have sold a house or know someone who has? Pretty much everyone, right?
What happens nearly everytime someone prepares to sell a house? They start fixing things.
New paint.
New flooring.
New bathroom sink.
The holes in the walls get fixed.
They do some landscaping.
Their house looks great! They did all of that work, and then...they move!
Doesn't make any sense. Why did they wait to make repairs to their house until they were ready to move, when they could have fixed it up a little at a time and actually enjoyed it while they lived there?! All that effort for someone else's benefit. Shame. Shame. If the way it was before they made the fixes wasn't good enough for the buyers, it shouldn't have been good enough for the sellers!
And that's so true of life, too. We settle! We wait to do the things we really want until "the time is right". Or we wait until something happens - good or bad - before we start taking better care of ourselves. If you wait too long, it might be too late!
We spend so many of our days complaining about "the old carpet" and "covering up the hole in the wall with a painting" (I honestly do have a photo hanging somewhere in our house that IS, in fact, covering up a hole. I am not going to tell you where it is. We have plaster walls, and it just didn't seem worth fixing!...read on)...where was I? Oh yah, We spend so many of our days complaining about "the old carpet" and "covering up the hole in the wall with a painting" when we could be ripping out "the carpet" and getting "the flooring" we really want, and patching the "hole" and letting our "walls" speak for themselves. (Is your job like the carpet? If so, learn a new skillset to set you apart from your co-workers or apply for a different position. Is there some part of your life you've been neglecting or trying to avoid? Kind of like a hole in the wall that you just stick a painting over and call it good...hoping no one will ever move it? Stop ignoring the problem. Face it head on - it's better to be open and honest and try to solve the problem than to be worried that someone might "discover your secret"! (Is it weird I'm envisioning a giant sweatshirt hiding a less than tone midsection?...)
It doesn't have to be a complete gut job. (Ha. I do crack myself up!) Most of us can't afford or have time for that! But you probably can make small changes in your everyday life. Get creative and find ways to make life as it is right now work until you can "afford" that BIG change. (At work, I started listening to KWIT Public Radio...I get to listen to some of my favorite NPR programming...it helps distract me from the fact that I'm "AT WORK".) You know, learn to appreciate and find value in "popcorn ceilings". You can start making choices that reflect how you really feel - not just what you think others expect you to choose. You can start making yourself a priority. (Have you learned how to say "No"? It's amazing...which leads me to...) You don't always have to do what other people want. It's okay to not always be 100% agreeable. (I'm gonna jot that one down...Just kidding...I already know this...I'm quite disagreeable! Ask Jake!)
Stop waiting for that push...that "I have no other choice but to act" moment. Life is short and time is fleeting. Say and do what you want. Who cares what other people think?! Seriously. Tomorrow isn't a guarantee...it really isn't. So gosh darn it, spruce up that "fixer upper of a life" now and start enjoying it already!
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