Try Something New Tuesday: Live Deliberately

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately..." WALDEN by Henry David Thoreau

InkPaperPen has a great prompt this week, but my mind wandered off after it saw this phrase. I may not have written to the prompt. However, I did write.





Sometimes my silly is easy, like here.
Sometimes it is
forced to hide my pain.



I think this is what I have been trying to do for the last year, live deliberately. I also think the frustration I sometimes feel overwhelms me because I don't know how to live deliberately and effortlessly. I seem almost manic to keep busy and moving and not tarrying because tarrying leads to thinking, which leads to missing and mourning, which directs my path to crawling under the covers to retreat to my shell.

I want to be one of those people that you sit back and say, "Wow! She's so spontaneous and full of life." I wish my middle name was adventure, mystery or intrigue.

In my research, I found a site that asked 7 questions in order to help you find the joy of living deliberately:

1. What is important to you?
2. In a given situation, what are your choices?
3. What are the consequences of your choices?
4. Which is better: talking about it or doing it?
5. Do you see a gap between your choices and what is important to you? (The bigger the gap, the more regret you will feel).
6. If it all goes wrong, will you still be content that you did it?
7. Are you tolerant of others' choices?

I learned from reading this article that it is not about planning and plotting every move in life. I also learned that it is not about letting life just happen to you. I need to weigh what is priority to me against the choices I have and the actions I take.

Have you chosen your lifestyle? Or has it chosen you?