Welcome to "The Art of Living"

 
Welcome to my blog "The Art of Living." For many of us, recent years have been challenging, spiritually, financially, physically, it seems, more than usual, life has included our share of struggles. Whether it’s dealing with aging relatives, a lost job or career, a business failure, a serious illness, instead of cruising to the next stage of life, many of us, including me, are literally starting over.

While the tendency might easily and understandable be to lament such a situation, I have decided, instead, to see these circumstances as an opportunity, armed with precious knowledge and experience, to begin again.

I have noticed particularly among my women friends, although many of my male buddies seem to be experiencing the same thing, that they’ve started to focus more on living life on their own terms. Having put aside our own needs for the first half of the journey, whether it was in deference to family members, friends, employers, and essentially anyone else who needed anything, we’ve started putting our own needs first.

In 2011, I started making it more about me. Some by choice, some by circumstance, I simply let go of everyone and everything in my life that didn’t honor who I was and who I wanted to be. It wasn’t easy. It’s sometimes hard to see that something isn’t working for you, and it’s harder still to walk away from habits, especially relationships with people who have been a part of your life for a long time. After I essentially cleaned house, what was left was a big empty, and sometimes incredibly lonely, space that I have since been refilling with a life of my own creation.

Now, some months later, however difficult it was, and sometimes still is, I have never been more certain of anything…letting go of what wasn't working for me was the smartest thing I've ever done. This is not to say that when someone or something needs my attention that I don't make myself available, I do. But I got into the habit of being there for everyone, no matter what the personal cost, and while I believe life is meant to be about service, I don't believe it should necessarily be at my personal expense. There is no 1:1 reciprocity in life, but one must also be open to receive.

This is not an advice column. I’ve started this blog because I’ve learned quite a lot about myself in the past few years and I sense there are many others out there in a similar space who have much to share. Here, I will offer some of what I do to make my life less of a series of “have tos” and obligations and more of a work of art.And whatever your situation, whether you’ve been giving too much, trying too much, accepting too much, or asking for too little in your own life, I hope that you’ll find something here you can use to nurture your own existence or share ideas that have helped you make art in your own life.
Take what you need and leave the rest. Visit again, comment, discuss, I hope you come back soon.

Kellie
artofliving@kellietabron.com