The Weekly Beat: 24
The joy of missing out.
I did something this week that I thought I would never do.
I said no to something that I really wanted. Something that I have been working towards for many years. Something that I (at least thought) was part of my master plan. And I said no.
To say yes to this would mean to say no to Paris.
To say yes to this would mean to say no to my summer in Europe with the kids.
To say yes to this would mean to say no to dropping off the kids and picking them up every day in the fall.
To say yes to this would mean to say no to homework nights, to cooking together, to eating dinners together, to travel together.
I’m not ready to say no to all this. Not now. Not ever. I’ve done enough discovery and work on myself to know what matters most. What lights up my soul. And as new seductive opportunities come my way, I consistently try to review them through my lens of core values and goals.
I’ve said no to many things, because I have committed to this life. I’m fully aware that by choosing Paris, to choosing my experience with the kids, I sacrifice all the other ‘dreams’ I want to pursue, whether professional or personal. And to willingly make that sacrifice is to take a stand, without reservation, on what matters most to me.
There’s a story attributed to Warren Buffett, not sure if it’s real or fable like many wise insights attributed to Albert Einstein, but anyway the story goes something like this:
He’s on a flight and his personal pilot asks him to set priorities. He responds with make a list of top 25 things you want out of life and then arrange them in order of priority. The first 5 should ultimately be how your organize your time. The rest avoid at all cost. The other 20 are the ambitions insufficiently important to you, yet seductive enough to distract you from those that matter most.
Sometimes those things are easy to say no to, because deep down you know they aren’t what you want in the first place. But most will be things you actually really want. And it’s learning how to consistently say no to those things - the things you want and maybe have worked hard for - that will create a path towards a life you really want. A life that truly lights up your soul, gives you joy and provides you with compounding memories.
But easier said than done. What’s the path to get to that point? You have to have an indisputable understanding of who you are and what you want out of life. There is a lot of work that needs to be done in this phase to really understand who you are and what life you want to create. If you aren’t here, you MUST invest the time to find yourself here. And if you are here, then follow Buffett’s advice: right down your top 5 goals in life. Every decision you make, every minute of time you allocate MUST filter through this lens. It’s that simple and it’s that hard (and heart-breaking!).
Remember, we have one life AND we get to choose how we live that life. Choose wisely!
3 Things This Week In My Mind and On My Heart
(1) The picnic game in Paris is STRONG, I’m not gonna lie. Especially with summer taking over in full force. I gotta be honest, it’s not enough to just throw a few items in your bag and show up. No, my friends, the Minuty Rose must be perfectly chilled, the watermelon has to be perfectly fresh, the strawberries have to be perfectly ripe. I’ve been using my Polarbox to keep all things cool and to also look purdy cool!
(2) People ask me all the time the brands that I shop in Paris. The truth is my favorite way of shopping in Paris is the random boutiques, where they write the price tags by hand. But from time to time I will shop some brand names. For summer I have been into Vanessa Bruno.
(3) It was my daughter’s graduation this week. It was bittersweet. Filled with all the feels. One of my favorite parts that brought me to tears was a song they performed from Wicked called For Good. Have you ever listened to the lyrics? “Because I knew you, I have been changed for good”….It’s been on repeat at our household. So much meaning behind it!