“Comparison is the thief of joy.”
Becoming a mom has been one of the greatest adventures of my life. The joy that is created in my heart when my daughter learns something new or simply smiles is indescribable.
However, I know that this part of my life either isn’t for everyone, or isn’t for everyone right now.
When people meet my daughter for the first time, there are a few different categories of reactions. There’s the “oh my gosh she’s a doll!” and they ooh and ahh over her cheeks. Then there’s the deer in headlights look, followed by “I’m not ready to have kids.”
Should I be offended by the latter? After all, it’s not exactly a compliment. My answer is no, and my response to them is simple: Yeah if you’re not ready, then don’t (ready is a relative term, but I think that’s for another blog post).
I’m a firm believer that you should be happy in whatever stage of life YOU are in. There is no obligation to even have to explain why you aren’t in the same life stage as others, & it’s NOT a bad thing. Making life decisions based on others or deciding you don’t have enough because of what someone else has is ridiculous.
If you’re not happy, you need to work hard to become happy. Look around you, discover the toxic things/people, try to make that situation/relationship better, if that doesn’t work it’s time to move on. Adding a baby/house/fiancé into a life where you are unhappy isn’t going to magically create joy. You need to be happy on your own for that new aspect of your life to take seed and blossom into something beautiful, amazing, life changing.
Don’t worry about that baby shower for your friend and wonder if you’re doing something wrong by not being the one pregnant. You need to live your life, you’re young, enjoy that. There is a time & place for everything.
Once you are past a certain part of your life, you always look back with clarity at what you’d do differently. Pretend you are a person with (a new job, a new fiancé, new baby, new house), what would you have wished you had done when things were more simple? See what I did there? You don’t have less if you don’t have THOSE things, you have more of something else. More freedom, more travel, more time to invest in the people in your life, more time to learn a new skill, more energy to follow your dreams.
Maybe you’re a person who has all those things I mentioned and you’re still not very happy, there’s something to that, and you need to find out why, & again, work to get to a point of happiness.
Find the positives and joy in the moments surrounding you. A great way to do this is to start a praise/gratitude journal, where you write down the things/people/moments you’re blessed by. Before you know it, you’ll be overwhelmed by how much you do have, and you’ll realize how beautiful this stage of life actually is.