Getting Stuck: Navigating the Beyond the Perceptions of the Outside World

Recently I was talking to a friend of mine about why lately everyone seems to feel stuck in a place in their lives. Living in the confines of a monetary system that was created by man, we have created our own need to work and work and work and work until we have nothing left but work to give. Someone asked me to tell them a little bit about myself and all I could talk about was my past work experience, that I was an athletic trainer, have been for 7 years, I've worked in the college setting, now in the high school setting, and I am a teacher. That’s it. I could only talk about those tangible things that you think you are supposed to say are your life's accomplishments. That's all I could say about myself. Is that really who I am? Is that all that I am? There's gotta be more to all of us than just that.

If people could live their lives and truly live their dreams, do the projects they want to do and take the chances in their careers that they would take with no financial repercussions, I think they would do just that and the traditional sense of accomplishment and the idea of the traditional workplace would cease to exist as we know it. The shift towards doing things that are more environmentally safe and aiding in the success of smaller businesses is allowing everyone to see that they have the opportunity to do something different, to chase their dreams and to actually make a living out of that dream, which is something that is feasible for the first time probably since the initial development of the American dream. Isn't that what life is about? To make yourself better, to do better, to be better, to go after your dreams and achieve them. Isn't that what the American dream is all about?

Social Media has allowed for all of us to connect to each other on a level that people have never been able to connect before. You can see someone who’s helping children, writing a book or starting their own blog. We have access to people's personal lives, but at the same time are we really seeing the real parts of people's lives? Social media rarely shows us the ugly in someone's personal life. You'll see the ugliness of the world, hear about tragedies on a global scale but even if you're seeing it if you're not personally connected to the event do you really feel it? Now, while social media has been helpful in allowing people to pursue their dreams because utilizing it can get your information out to people immediately and it can span across the world as quick as a click, I think for those of us that feel “stuck” in our lives it has really served as a detriment to our mental and emotional state. Social media has allowed us to focus so much on what other people are doing; about the vacations other people are taking, business ventures, weddings etc. that we can't even look at our own lives and see what's positive in it because we're always looking at someone else. Wishing you could afford to go to France, versus understanding the reason you aren’t going to France is that you have bought yourself a new house. We don't look at the positive aspects of our life and look at what we are exposed to from an objective standpoint and think hey, of course, they're going to share their trip to Paris with the world, they're not going to share that their parent is ill, that they are in crippling debt, or that their relationship may have just fallen apart. As a result of everyone just seeing highlights of other’s lives, we begin to feel that we are not living our best life, thus we are always searching for what it means to live our best lives.

Now social media can also be used as a catalyst calling you to action, to express an idea, goal or pursue a dream that you love. If they can go out there and pursue their dreams no matter how old they are or no matter what their circumstance is if they can put themselves out there than we can too which is a wonderful sentiment but be careful not to allow it to make you feel stuck in your life. I truly believe that if we all really want to make a change we can. Now it's not going to happen overnight for some of us. If we were all meant to achieve the same things at the same time, life would be pretty boring. Do not let the timeline screw you up. Don't let what other people are doing make you feel like you are less than or that you can't do what you want to do. Don't allow yourself to feel stuck. Even the worst thing that's going on in your life has to have something positive coming out of it. My father getting sick was the worst thing that could have ever happened to our family. He has been sick for over 12 years and I can say though that it made my relationship stronger with my mother. Now, does that mean that him getting sick was a good thing, no but him getting sick did allow me to mend fences with my mother, and that may have never happened under different circumstances. There has to be a shining light in the darkness somewhere. Don’t get stuck!