Staying Strong and Independent

I believe there's something to be said about using other people's experiences and knowledge as a guide when going through life. It's comforting to know that others have gone before you on the path you're now walking. Others whohave lived through what you're living through, seen things you are just starting to see, and can guide you along the path of life. Mentors are everywhere and it's important to listen when presented with advice.



It starts to become an issue however, if you allow yourself to only be guided by others and forget to listen, feel and follow your own heart. You have significant input in your own life but this is tough to remember when you're stressed about everything around you. If you only listen to others, you can drown in a sea of advice and forget where you were headed.


Not everyones' experiences are the same. Even if at the core the destination is the same, we all walk different paths to get there and along the way we make decisions that affects us in various ways, not always the same.


Take for example becoming pregnant. The fact that we will (hopefully) end up with a baby in nine months, is the same. If I had listened to all those mothers gone before me about what it was like being pregnant and giving birth, I doubt I would have had my beautiful Emma. I would have taken all the advice, grouped it together and seen that the majority didn't like being pregnant, hated giving birth and summed it up to the worst experience of their life. Even after they held their babies, they continued to complain about nursing, changing diapers, the lack of sleep and so on and so forth.

I asked a woman today if going through a separation with her two young daughters was difficult. I knew the answer, but I felt I needed to hear it. She was not holding anything back. She was honest about her experience and I was thankful for it. What struck me as odd was how she felt the need to push her experience on to my life and compare the two as being the same. She doesn't know my life, nor my relationships or my family. To her, if I was to go through the same one day, it would end up as bad as hers. Maybe it was her own experiences shining through and the judgments she made along the way that made her bitter about it, or perhaps it was the saddness of "failing" at something and me bringing it up that made her almost convince me that life ended with a separation and your children are victims in a situation they cannot control. I know this much, I have the best father to my child and the best partner in anything that we will go through.

It's important to make decisions and not live in limbo out of fear. We're not in the least the same as the next person. My life is not like your life and I don't have the same relationships as the next person.

If I listen to the experiences of others in all my life dealings and decisions, I would be frightened to step out of my house every day. Yet we put a lot of stock in other people's advice. All this to say that if a path you're on feels good, it makes sense and your in a place where you've weighed the options, you've examined the multitude of scenarios and you're surrounded by good people that support you, then you are set, in your own way to go forth along the path you've started out on. Believing that others are better equipped to deal with your life is wrong and it gets you nowhere but idling and in limbo.

Believe that you will find your path and you are on your way to greater places.

Simon, I love you, now and always, you are in my world forever and for that I am ultimately thankful. My heart is full of you and I will never ever let go of that feeling and will always be here when you need me.