Day 65 - Which "ME" Do I Really Deserve?

I had a day today. Quite a day. The kind of day where you sleep too late, forget your breakfast, run late, come within 6 inches of getting creamed by another car who wasn't paying attention on her way onto the road, AND have really important things at work to take care of which ALL get knocked down a peg by having to drag (I literally mean drag) your sick Kindergartener to the doctor only to find out that he has the flu (even though you made SURE he had his vaccination) AND that the flu is so bad that it's infected his eye.  And 6-year old men are so independent when they're sick, that you'll surely be able to get a bunch of work done while he just peacefully watches cartoons and rests all day and, hey, you'll even get to work more on your blog, right????? 

Hence, at the end of that long doctor's appointment, I had another left vs. right struggle in my brain, because I was already stopping at Sonic for a slush for my son's miserable throat, and I knew I was getting one too (Happy Hour = Half Price!).  I felt proud of myself for choosing a medium instead of a large (okay, I still got the Nerds candy in there because it's DELICIOUS) and for choosing the diet cherry instead of regular (less calories) and for winning the tug-of-war in my brain between chicken wings - no - chicken wings - no - OH PLEASE chicken wings!  I was proud of myself for saying NO, but then I got angry.  Why?  Because I DESERVE to eat frickin' chicken wings when I've dealt with all this crap all day, OKAY?!?!?

I've chatted about this several times and about how this is a really big struggle for me - what I deserve to eat, to have, to feel.  I've struggled with this because I thought it was about whether I really deserve to eat, have and feel those things, when I thought, truthfully, that I didn't really deserve to be happy.  Now I know that isn't true.  I had a "lightbulb moment" when I realized that I was RIGHT - it IS about what I deserve - I just had the timing wrong.  Making these choices isn't about what I deserve to eat, to have, and to feel NOW.  It isn't about ME, at least about the current "ME."  It's about creating the "ME" that I want to be - the life that I want to have.  

I realized I have been acting like a 6 year old.  I specifically thought of the famous 1960s-1970s Stanford studies on delayed gratification where researchers asked children if they wanted one marshmallow "now," or if they would rather wait 15 minutes and would be given two instead - and children almost ALWAYS choose now.  They choose "now" even though it's less than "later."  Why?  Because of immaturity. 

Because "now" is what they see right in front of them - "later" seems less concrete, there's less hope, they can't envision it.  Funny thing is, the kids who could delay the reward because they saw the value ended up, decades later, to be more successful in many areas of their lives. 

I'm being immature in my thinking - it's ALL about what I deserve - but I need to decide which ME I really deserve, and I already know the answer.  Now, I need to have the maturity to envision what that looks like, and have the hope through faith that it will turn into reality, if I will just be strong enough to make those right choices. 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Introduction

Image
My name is Stacey, and I am a real life cookie monster.  I have loved desserts my entire life, and actually, as a baby, my first word (besides mama and dada) was...  true story....  "COOKIE!"  I grew up on straight apple juice, high octane Kool-Aid, and fresh homemade baked goods almost daily.   Add to that genetics which show me a glimpse into my future where I will always have a struggle with weight, two babies who have permanently changed my body upon their exits, and a whole ton of bad habits and only a glimmer of willpower, and...  here I am.  I am 34 years old, and I am tired.  I'm tired of the struggle to put myself first, my healthy self, my potential self.  The self that I have put first is the self that gets tired working full time and "deserves" the pizza and dessert, the self that LOVES sweets, the self that doesn't like to see food wasted (you know, the "finish-all-the-food-on-your-plate" generation) so I eat all the leftover food on
Read more

Day 76 - I Have A Fever... And The Only Cure Is More Girl Scout Cookies

Image
These last two weeks, our house has been a petri dish of nasty germs.  Living in a house where my husband and I are both teachers in different school systems, my son is in an elementary school, and my daughter goes to a daycare, means that we come home with four different sets of "gross" on a daily basis, so when one of us goes down, the others are likely to follow.  But this time has been different, because we've all been catching DIFFERENT things, which blows my mind.  Just when you think life is crazy, add something in like sickness and it shows you just how good you had it before when you were already complaining.  Keeping in that mindset of "someone else always has it worse than you do" I'm also reminded that "health is not valued until sickness comes."  To weeks ago, my got the flu.  As soon as he was on the mend, we had an ER visit for my daughter, which ended up in the conclusion that she had "some virus" which STILL didn
Read more

Day 50 - Shake It Up To Shake Things Up

Image
If you've been following me along this journey (50 days so far!) I've mentioned Shakeology to you a few times, and I told you I'd explain more on a later post, and that post is HERE!  Now, before I get started, I do want to go ahead and tell you right away, that I AM a Team Beachbody Coach and I DO SELL this stuff.  Don't stop reading!  This is no ad. Don't like this sort of stuff?  To each his own! Never gonna buy it?  Cool with me! Have a friend who's a coach, so IF you bought it, you'd buy it from him/her?  Awesome! This blog has been a journey through MY failures and successes - and I'm just sharing my story. So, one of my best, best friends is a Beachbody Coach, and she convinced me to try this stuff.  And I was COMPLETELY skeptical.  I've had it all - Slim Fast shakes back in college (hello, chalky texture!), Carnation instant breakfast (shook a whole bottle of that stuff into a brand new laptop and ruined it - there's some memo
Read more