I Decide

I absolutely do not like feeling as if I do not have a handle on my life. Maybe it's a character flaw, but I like to have my work, my thoughts, and my feelings in line. I've always been a student, and my success or failure has historically been based on my own actions, which I can control. I like to succeed (don't we all?) so I like to control. If some part of my life is not how I want, I do my best to figure out why things are going wrong, and then to fix it. What absolutely grinds me to pieces is when I know something isn't working, and I can't do anything about it.

But as I get deeper and deeper into research (the unknown), and closer and closer to real life (unpredictable people and teams), there becomes more and more I cannot control. I would like to grow and become better at accepting that there are things I cannot control. In the meantime, there are things I can ALWAYS decide. To remind myself, I've made a list:

I decide that I am more important than my research, and there is more to life than work.

I decide that I am beautiful, even if there's nobody around to tell me so.

I decide that I am intelligent, and I will not compete with nor judge others on their intelligence.

I decide that I am worth taking care of, and I will eat, sleep, exercise, and be kind to my body.

I decide that I am allowed to feel any emotion that may come along, and will not accept secondary emotions of shame or denial or guilt for having feelings.

I decide that I will find ways to deal with every situation in life in "real-time," and not just ignore and hope that time will pass and make it go away.

I decide that I can not control how other people act, or how other people feel, and that I do not need to.

And with a nod to a good friend of mine I am trying to learn from, I decide to work as hard and as diligently as I can, and then to live my life with no regrets.

Bring on Monday.