Chapter 2: Taking Care of the Caretaker

Get off your but's

In their best-selling book, DO IT! Let's Get Off Our But's, John-Roger and Peter McWilliams explain one reason why people are so reticent to carry out the dreams of youth:

Why aren't we living our dreams? Because there is something we are trained to honor more than our dreams: the comfort zone.

The authors go on to say: The comfort zone is all the things we have done often enough to feel comfortable doing again. Whenever we do something new, it falls outside the barrier of the comfort zone. In even contemplating a new action, we feel fear, guilt, unworthiness, hurt feelings, and/or anger—all those things we generally think of as uncomfortable.

Many parents use the safe cocoon of the family as an excuse to neglect the very thing that would make them feel alive, the thing that would bring energy to both themselves and their family: pursuing their dreams. To get off their butt's and activate the part of themselves that moves them toward pursuing their dreams, is to take the giant leap outside of the comfort zone.

Athena, a single mother of two pre-teens, related to us how she jiggled herself loose from her comfort zone: "I used to work at a job that was all right, but it wasn't very challenging, and the pay wouldn't exactly qualify me for `Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.' I came home at the end of every day and followed the exact same routine. I'd start a load of laundry, make dinner, complain about my life on the phone to a friend, head for the couch, and watch TV until I fell asleep. Then I'd get up and start the same process all over the next day. My life wasn't really that bad, but I had absolutely nothing to look forward to. Friends would make suggestions on what I could do to spice up my life, but I just couldn't get motivated. I don't know what stopped me. It's like I'd gotten so used to feeling nothing that I didn't know how to change it. Then one day, my son met a new friend, and he started talking about his friend's mother, non-stop. `Hector's mother does this,' and `Hector's mother does that.' And, `Hector has the coolest mother. She and some of her friends bought a canoe and they take turns taking it to the lake.' I strongly suspected that Hector's mother had a husband that helped finance and direct all of the fun activities going on over at Hector's house. I pointed that out to my son. `No,' he said. `She's divorced just like you.' `Well, she must make a lot more money than me,' I concluded. `I don't think so mom, she's a school teacher.' Well, she definitely wasn't making a lot of money.

"I finally decided to go over and meet this superwoman. I was determined that I wasn't going to like her; I would find some crack in her veneer that I could run home and report to my son, bursting his bubble of the great mom down the street. I knocked on the door and was greeted by a five foot four ball of fire. Her smile just radiated enthusiasm, and after introductions, Louise invited me into her home. She pushed aside a stack of papers on the kitchen table, and poured me a cup of coffee. `Don't mind the brochures,' she said. `The kids and I are just planning where we're going to go on vacation this summer.' She must have been speaking in a foreign language, because I didn't recall the word vacation being in my vocabulary. `Every year we all save up so we can have a family vacation. We award twenty dollars extra spending money to the person who can come up with the cheapest, but most fun vacation. Each of us has to submit our proposal, complete with a budget including cost of gas, food, lodgings, and entrance fees. They're all compared, and the one who comes in with the best trip with the lowest bid wins. It's really fun. The kid's get to be involved, it teaches them about doing research, and it helps them appreciate how much a vacation really costs. It also gives us all something to look forward to.' SOMETHING TO LOOK FORWARD TO! She'd said the magic words. Louise had such a zest for living, and I had a feeling it was because she always had something to look forward to. What I liked best about Louise is that she created the things she had to look forward to. I'd always just sort of waited for those things to come to me, and I might as well have been waiting for Godot. I left that house feeling truly inspired. I went right home and made a list of all the things I had always dreamed of doing. I didn't have huge dreams, but they were my dreams. Next to each of my dreams, I wrote out a plan on how I was going to achieve them. And then, I set about doing it! I'm really proud that I've followed through with many of them in the past two years, and I plan to follow through with the rest of them, and even add more in the years to come. When I think back to the days I just sat around the house thinking about what I wanted to do instead of doing it, I can't believe I'm the same woman. All it took was a little momentum from the little spitfire down the street and a lot of belief in myself to get me out of the rut I was in."

Athena finished her story by telling us that the energy and never-say-never attitude that Louise exuded was highly contagious, and treatable only by acting on her own dreams.

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