If you want to live a happy life, You gotta Give Your Life a REBOOT!

I am bored! I heard my kids say that a thousand times — a day! Every time, I responded, “I am not your cruise ship activities director! Go figure it out.” And they did. They caused trouble, made a mess, created some treasures and sure made some memories.

Bored; I mean I AM bored. I am bored with my life (and don’t care for Pina Coletta's or walks in the rain). I have a beautiful life, a successful business, great kids, wonderful grandkids, a comfortable marriage (I tell current #3, that he’s my favorite and he reminds me that’s not a real complement) and I have numerous talents. BUT, I’M BORED! Admit it; you are too!

Folks have said that boredom cannot kill you but I think they’re wrong. Boredom kills you slowly, moment by moment, decision by decision, step by step even if it is not obvious to you, you are on the wheel of death (imagine being a gerbil). The wheel that spins at the pace you set for it, at the times you make it go. You step on it then step off of it only to step on it again and call it a glorious, good happy day (thank the baby JC). And as you turn that wheel, your unused brain cells and memories fall away, your unused muscles atrophy. Finally you will be using all that need (which won’t be much), have all that you want (because there is plenty of room for wishes and dreams) and you will be sipping the pale pink sugar water.

I realized I’m bored like I have been numerous times before in my 60 years but unlike ever before, I see possibilities in the boredom. A REBOOT! There are many ways to experience a REBOOT.

Your life can be a NATURAL REBOOT which is caused by our developing bodies do as they grow from new arrivals to the planet trying to communicate with aliens who do not understand your needs but you work with them and learn to work cooperatively together.

Your life can have a CATASTROPHY REBOOT. I had one of those about 20 years ago. I had an all OVER, MAKE-OVER CATASTROPHIC REBOOT. I was booted out of what I thought was a loving environment (I was clergy in a mainline denomination Christian church) because I didn’t keep quiet about my colleague’s totally unethical practice of seducing the women he was counseling. The Church denomination leaders told me I was “not a team player.” It was like I was sitting in a boat and watch pieces of my life being thrown over-board but not before I was first black-balled. In that one experience, I lost my career, my financial security, my identity and a place to live.

AND, as if all that were not enough in the same time span, I had a BTI (Brain Trauma Injury). I was bicycling on a country road in Miami County Ohio after having ran 5 miles earlier in the morning. It was a hot June day and the hubsters and I were going to make a beautiful day of it and ride — without a helmet, of course because those aren’t cool looking. It was about the 20th mile when I felt as if I should rehydrate because things started feeling fuzzy. I don’t remember the ambulance ride or my hubster giving our bikes to a stranger or the Emergency Room visit. I do remember someone saying, “we cannot help her…” I remember some of the helicopter ride. I remember passing out from the pain of the staples scraping across my skull. I remember some other, other worldly things (another story, another time).

NOTE: I was NOT a victim of any of those experiences. I was well aware of the how the culture operated and still made the choices I did.

Now where was I — 0h yes, REBOOTS. The final REBOOT is the SELF-CHOSEN REBOOT. The REBOOT that is YOUR choice. One way or another, it seems to me that either you change or become obsolete (which isn’t viable).

I heard a call to choose. Choose what? Choose who will be running your life. I could see the choice was to step on the Wheel of Death and serve my past which built my present (which I had a good life surviving thing going on) OR I could choose to THRIVE! To make choices in every day to walk on coals if necessary.

With fear that squeezed the crap out of me at times, I chose to THRIVE and in order to THRIVE rather than SURVIVE, I needed a REBOOT. I changed nearly everything in my life both physically, geographically and professionally.

Previously I was on a path of loosing my teeth one at a time until I covered my smile to hide the wholes. I worked through the fear of loosing my teeth (and spending big money on me which meant I really had to accept that I was SO worth it). One fear at a time, I had a chose to continue to follow that spiral descent or power through the fear, spend the money, trust my new dentist (thanks Dr. Jim!).

I chose to start bicycling and running again. I still call it falling forward since I’m at about 14 minute miles. I found new routes to run and had lots of options in Ohio trails to either run or bike.

The hubster’s and I chose to sell our house in Ohio and move to Pennsylvania to be closer to the powerful life force known as our granddaughters. I cleared out a 4000 square foot home with a 4.5 car garage so we could fit into a 2600 square foot lake house with no garage. I sorted and sold and gave away years of hoarding things because “it will be useful some day.” I gave away 4 pick up truckloads full of memories and possibilities — for someone else.

And, did I mention, I will be selling my business? The business I birth out of terrible pain and trauma. The business that I nurtured, developed, trained and grew until it was on auto-pilot growing all by herself.

I have found myself once again in a TOTAL REBOOT except this time, I made the choice. I am learning what mountain living is like here in PA and how everything is inconvenient. Your confidence wains a bit when you’re learning something new but I still step out into each new day, each new discovery into some place I don’t know. I am taking mad skills with me. I am seeing a kindness not previously known. I realize that I have not had one moment of boredom since moving here in NEPA (that’s northeast Pennsylvania).

Basically a REBOOT imagining you are the CAPTAIN and your life is the SHIP. When you REBOOT, you set the destination in a general direction and trust that you are so NOT alone! The course of thriving, growing, expanding, ascending, changing can be YOUR choice.

Scared? I know the feeling. Fear might keep you safe, in a jar, on a shelf like something fermented in a museum. There is not much usefulness to the world if your fermented ass is in a jar on a shelf but if that is what you want, there is no judgement from me. I want more! I want to receive and give and learn and grow and stretch and maybe sag too.

I can assure you the ride will be well worth taking and the world will be blessed by your discoveries!

Me? I am learning about my lifelong companion — me.

I am finding strength in my weakness,

Truth in inequity,

Peace in chaos,

Fear an illusion

but most of all, I find this is MY journey!

Mine, mine, mine, mine!!!