Refocusing

Every now and then, I stop and refocus myself. I take time to look at my priorities, and see if they are clear to me.

I've been spending a lot of time lately posting unschooling-related stuff on facebook, right when I've also started this blog. Part of the reason for the blog was to gather some of my thoughts in one place, and instead, I seem to be broadcasting them.

Today, I'll consolidate a little.

There's something I wrote somewhere- and oddly, now I can't remember where, or in what context- that people have started quoting.

"Try to make each choice, each decision, from a place of evaluating what is really happening, what really matters, rather than from any script in your head or the cultural pressure or preferences of other people. "


One person sent me a note, telling me she had quoted it, and saying that she thought it applied to many things besides unschooling.


She's right.


It applies to everything.


Everything.


Every relationship, every habit, every moment. From the serious and important, to the small and lighthearted, every choice you make needs to be YOUR choice.


Once I figured that out, it changed my whole life. As I told that person today, it was in learning to do this for my kids that I learned to do it for myself. To live my life on my terms, by my beliefs. To do what I think is right, even when everyone else disagrees. 


Many, many things about my life are not quite standard American behavior. :-)


My lawn is unmowed.
My relationships unlabeled and undefined.


It isn't that I just do whatever I want, and damn everyone else.
It's that I carefully consider my choices, rather than make them blindly.


At least that's what I try to do. I still get tripped up sometimes, and have to take a step back, re-evaluate, and unwind some tangled up thought processes.