Our lives and values
February 28th, 2007 by Mollie
There has been so much for me to think about since our big move across the country. We came out to Seattle for an adventure and to build a life that reflected our values. There was nothing set up for us here before we moved and in fact, neither Kendall or I had even been to Seattle before we drove in with our moving truck. Because of this we had the luxury and the struggle to examine almost every part of our life, right down to EVERY material object we own. All that had at one point seemed important was thrown before us and we had to look at it all and prioritize. Many conversations took some shape or form of the following, “Kendall, which is it more important to you when we are looking for apartments, the community it is in or the size/quality of the apartment?” or “What sort of things does the area we are going to live HAVE to have?”. We would look at our values and ways in which our lifestyle encouraged or stifled them.
There are so many ways that our life has changed and continues to do so on a daily basis. Our life now reflects our values more coherently. Things are simpler and we each seem to have more of an ease about us. There was a great inner stress as a result of not living out what we knew was important and in some cases not being able to for various reasons.
I feel happy for and proud of us and daily feel blessed to have such a wonderful partner in my husband with whom to figure this life out. There is a lot that I/we get wrong. However, I do know that everyday we do what we can and there are many days we do the best we can. At times it has felt and continues to feel scary to take honest examinations of our life and put all excuses aside. The reason it is scary and the reason it is also can be so beneficial is because the conclusions we draw will force us to make a decision. Are we going to make the difficult change or are we going to make an excuse that will allow us continue our current behavior? What is it that is truly important to us: values, convenience, money, time, morals, human rights, health, beauty, popularity….?
As soon as I can better organize my thoughts I am going to publish a few follow-up posts that discuss some of my thoughts and some of the changes we have made and are planning/hoping to make.