courage

Courage!

/ Gracie Sunderland

Blimey, what a week. Not much to say other than O. M. G. It just keeps coming – too much work, issues going on with my parents’ health, ALL the world disasters. Things feel slippery and twisting and I can’t quite get a grip on any of them.

I’ve written before about overwhelm and whilst I still go there, mostly at the moment I’m just knackered. Trying to keep all the plates spinning seems increasingly unlikely. I am definitely making some crappy choices – staying up a bit too late, eating a bit too little, drinking a bit too much. None of this to the extent where it’s really damaging, but cumulatively it’s not really helping.

Slippery when wet/tired/gumpy. Photo by Itay Peer on Unsplash

In her amazing book The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, Bonnie Ware, a palliative care nurse, reflects on the most common things that people realise toward the end of their lives. The one which struck me wasn’t ‘I wish I hadn’t worked so hard’ but ‘I wish I had let myself be happier‘. Ware says:

“This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called ‘comfort’ of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content, when deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again.”

Bonnie Ware on what holds us back from happiness

This week I also read Alexandra Fuller’s ‘Leaving Before the Rains Come‘ about the lengthy unravelling of her twenty year marriage which had some similar reflections. The comfort in habits and ruts, however destructive they are, can feel like the only thing holding us together. There are lots of other truths here – what it means to collapse a life that you have actively participated in creating and the impact that has on others – and realising that change means loss.

Without meaning to sound like a crappy instagram meme: change is terrifying. But refusing to grow, and regretting what you might have missed out on, is much, much scarier.

That light wants to shine on ME? Hell no! Photo by Jared Rice on Unsplash

Sometimes I recognise that I am afraid to want things – afraid that wanting ‘too much’ or getting out of my lane will just end in ignominy and heartbreak. I get in the way of my own happiness. Which is ridiculous (and frustrating) but also feels like just an ass-hat way of being ungrateful. As well as all the slippery uncertainties in my life at the moment there are some amazing things: things I have prayed for and worked for and believed in. It’s taking daily work just to try and live in those moments, to not hold on too tightly and not so loosely that I drop them. Phew. No wonder I’m knackered.

So, on we go. Back out into the world and the new week with courage and gratitude. It will all work out.

Indeed. Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

No less than the stars

/ Gracie Sunderland

So I haven’t written for the last two weeks, which is bad because part of my commitment to this blog was about learning to – well, learning to commit I guess, which might not be my natural talent – but also about engaging with the practice of writing rather than focusing on outputs.

I have been super busy with work and was assuming that was why I hadn’t written, but being super busy with work is a) normal and b) an unacceptable excuse. I loathe competitive busy-ness and everything that comes with it – the toxic showboating; the tedium of having someone spend time that could have been better spent doing the damn thing telling me why they can’t; the letting people down and excusing it away.

Anyway: safe to say that it wasn’t work. I’m not sure at this point what kind of internal transformation is going on but I feel like a snow globe that has been shaken up, and I’ve been busy in anstonishment that my soul is dancing in the glittering starlight.

ALL the glitter: Photo by Luke Besley on Unsplash

I spend a lot of time thinking and writing about how to get through challenging times: the small habits, the next right step, the power of faith and of looking back at where you have come from to really understand how high the mountain was that you just climbed. I know – from my trust in God but also from the data – that brighter days are coming. But I cannot tell you how astonishing it is to find that brighter days are actually here, and I am not sure quite how to react.

Everything I profess to believe, though, tells me to be grateful for it but maybe not be surprised. And not to freak out when something feels too big or good to be true any more than I should freak out when the bad stuff feels overwhelming.

In the words of the Desiderata ‘You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here’. I fully believe this but I would take it another step – you are no less because you are the stars. Science (actual science, not The Lizard Times) agrees, saying that ‘almost all the elements in the human body were made in a star and may have been through several supernovas‘.

Reach for the stars because you are the stars: Photo by Phil Botha on Unsplash

What does it mean (and indeed you might ask, why is this relevant to a blog on FIRE? Though if you are asking that I cannot imagine it’s for the first time…)?

You don’t know what is coming to transform you, nor what you will look like after you’ve been through the fire. And transformation comes in all kinds of guises: from lightening bolts to erosion: from a life-changing medical diagnosis to unexpectedly and outrageously falling for someone.* You can plan for things but you can’t control it all. Yes there is data, both yours and that which comes from research or the world, your friends, the internet or whatever, but it won’t all be applicable. And even if you can know how things will work out, you can’t know what your own metamorphasis will look like. You just have to trust in the process.

So what it means is: I am not afraid. I’m not afraid or ashamed of the bad days, and I’m not afraid of being transfigured by the bright lights either. I can know that God created me and I will go back to Him: the circle never deviates from being a circle, things just look different depending on where you are. All you have to do is turn your face to the stars and marvel. That’s where you came from. Imagine who you might become.

*All examples in this blog are completely random

Courage: beginning!

/ Gracie Sunderland

First up: I’m thrilled this week to share my first ever podcast. I was interviewed by the fabulous Financial Independence Europe podcast, who kindly offered to talk to me about my journey to FIRE as a single parent. In spite of spending a lot of time thinking ‘surely nobody will be interested in this?! Surely my story is too boring / unique / specific / shameful to be relevant?!’ Then I thought about taking the path of courage, one where I dare to be different, to stand out. And I’m really glad I did!

I very much enjoyed the opportunity to talk about my journey, and maybe encourage others in a similar predicament to get started. You can listen to the podcast episode here and do sign up to the FI Europe podcast, it’s one of my go-to listens.