What's Next?

How many times in our lives do or will we ask ourselves or be asked, “What’s next?”  

The answer… Only about every time we reach a new milestone or achieve a goal. There’s something in our human nature that drives us to achieve and then as soon as we find success turn around to ask “What’s next?”

When we ask ourselves this question, we are naturally given the luxury of time and solitude to muse and brood over this question. We give ourselves as much time and space to figure out our next step, to form a plan, to discover just what it is that we want and/or need.

However, when someone else asks us this question, there is a wholly different reaction that occurs within us. For instance, there is a certain pressure that loads this question. The need to have some spectacular answer becomes great…as does the feeling of inadequacy when we don’t have that magnificent plan to share. The temptation to make something up on the spot - just to have an answer -to give our interrogator something to oooh and aaah over grows bigger within us with each passing second.

At times, we can’t help but exaggerate and embellish our lives so that we don’t feel as if everyone else is accomplishing more with their lives while we sit watching the grass grow. Other times, we are at a loss as to what to say. Really, the odds are that only a very miniscule portion of those we come into contact with actually have lives as fabulous as they claim. As for the rest, well, we’re just posers – at least for a time until we really do something fabulous to tell the world.

After answering this question numerous times in the past six months due to my quickly approaching graduation, my reaction has changed over time and continues to do so. Now when someone asks me, “What’s next?” A keen sense of panic takes hold of my chest and constricts until I finally come up with an answer. Only then does Panic loosen its hold on me, but does not completely release me.

The spectacular answer I’d really like to give is this, “I DON’T KNOW!!” My magnificent plan is this; I don’t have one because I’m not there yet. Whatever answer I give and whatever plan I formulate today is going to change six days, six weeks, six months from now. And we all know the famous saying about “The Best Laid Plans…” and it’s true. Have you ever had a plan that has worked out every step of the way exactly the way you’d thought? Odds are the answer is no.

So the next time someone asks me, “What’s next?” My answer is going to be this: “I’ll let you know when I get there. Right not, I’m just enjoying the ride.”

We Are Our Own Worst Enemy

I’ve had several related conversations in the past week or so unbeknownst to the various people who partook in them. The crux of these conversations was the fear of a new relationship turning into one we’ve had before – one that left us hurt and betrayed.

This fear is very nearly palpable. It has left such a bitterly acidic taste in our mouth that we cannot possibly forget it. Nor can we fully wash it away.

It is the distinct flavor of pain after ignoring the warning signs, those big red flags that yell for us to, “Get out now!! Run for your life!!!” You know the ones we should have acknowledged and heeded that remain in the back of our minds as we enter a new relationship. Only now, we look for these red flags like hawks searching for mice in a tall-grassed field – hardly seen from a normal vantage point but if there, they will be found. The so-called “cracks” in the foundation of whatever fledgling relationship we are entering are found with a magnifying glass powerful enough to see even the most minute faults.

What we can’t see is that we are the problem in this new scenario. We are the hawks and the mice, the magnifying glass and the cracks. We are our own worst enemy and we don’t even know it.

Fear has taken over our lives to the point where we look for and dissect and analyze every weakness, every similarity, ever word, look and motion that could lead us to the same end as before – intense pain and a keen sense of betrayal.

So why do we do this? To avoid the pitfalls and mistakes of our past.

And what do we end up with? Intense pain and a keen sense that we brought this on ourselves.

And the fact of it is: we did.

We let the pain of our past manifest into a life-crippling fear that hinders and eventually breaks all relationships we “attempt” to have – that is, if we let it.

So I ask you this: why do we let the pain and mistakes of past relationships effect the growth and development of new ones?

With this in mind here are my thoughts on the steps we need to take in order to avoid these pitfalls…

We have to realize:

1.   This is a new relationship.
2.  He/she is not our ex.
3. We are different now than we were then because of experiences we’ve had, the pain and joy we’ve felt, and the lessons we’ve learned.

All we can do is this: follow our hearts, listen to good advice, and trust our instincts. We have to trust that we learned from our mistakes but won’t let them stand in our way of finding happiness. Most importantly and, perhaps with the most difficulty, we have to trust someone just a little even though and especially because doing so gives them the opportunity to break our hearts…or make us happier than we’ve ever been.

Disney Bad Boys

"How do you expect kids to listen to their parents when Tarzan lives half naked, Cinderella comes home at midnight, Pinocchio lies all the time, Aladdin is the king of thieves, Batman drives at 200 mph, Sleeping Beauty is lazy, and Snow White lives with 7 guys? We shouldn't be surprised when kids misbehave; they get it from their storybooks."

I saw this posted on Facebook by a cousin of mine and it sparked a stream of thoughts in my mind as soon as I was done laughing at how true this creative tidbit of logic was.

Recently, I watched Walt Disney’s Tangled and it was about 15 minutes into the movie or rather the first scene involving Flynn Rider that I had a revelation.

(Here, I will pause my revelation for a slight digression.)

As the initial quote of this post indicates, we (those of us who grew up watching everything Disney) have been socialized in a certain way by these movies. With the exception of Batman, these are all films made by Walt Disney Studios. I grew up watching them and many more like them in a routine of something like one a day, in rotation. And as it strongly suggests, I’m sure I learned many lessons, morals and values by watching Disney’s classic and latest creations. (For example, I learned the word idiot from 101 Dalmatians- something my parents were thrilled about.) So upon reading my cousin’s status, the wheels that had been turning as I revisited a few of my favorite Disney movies over the past couple years gained momentum.

(And here is where my digression meets my revelation…)

Disney is just one (albeit a very large contributor) to my bad boy-forbidden love complex. It is not that I actively seek out trouble-making, law-bending, heart-breaking bad boys. I swear! It just so happens that they aren’t very few or far between – at least when I’m around, that is.

Bad boys with a heart of gold. The misunderstood guys who only seem bad. The men who get caught up in bad situations because they choose to stick loyally by their friends who do actively seek out trouble but can’t handle the heat alone. The rebels without a cause.

These are the men I expect and hope for when I meet a "bad boy"…. I am always wrong.

I’ve seen them all, all except the ones listed above. Every one has ended the same way. There was no seemingly divine revelation where everyone who warned me I’d get hurt sees what I see and realizes he really is a nice, good guy. There was no turn-around where the guy leaves his wild, reckless, misunderstood ways behind (or mostly behind ;-) )  for the love of an honest woman a.k.a. me. Nope! Those who warned me were right, the guy stayed the same or likely got worse, and I got hurt and/or was left alone.

But as Flynn Rider – a thieving riff-raff hooligan – races across the screen, my heart rate picks up, my excitement builds and my crush on Flynn Rider begins and grows like so many men before him (although the majority of these men have thankfully been made of flesh rather than animated sketches). From that point on, my heart is his. I root for him. My attachment for him only growing as bad guys chase him, as he reluctantly helps the pretty blond with such long hair and just as hesitantly falls in love, as he reveals his sensitive, vulnerable side and his past.

This is the sequence of events I’ve grown up, for the most part, expecting only to find: if a guy seems like or is labeled a “bad boy,” it is not conducive to them later being discovered as a “bad boy with a heart of gold.” They are most likely going to stay a bad boy and will most likely break my heart just a little.

I keep thinking I’m meeting a Flynn Rider, an Aladdin, a Tramp, a Pinocchio, or a Peter Pan and finding out the hard way that that is not the case…Thanks, Walt.