How far would I go for the people I love? Pretty far.
I'll go to Disneyland for my kids. I promise you, even as a child I had no big driving desire to go there.
I'll go to the Zoo in Houston in the summer for my kids. This one hits so many of my things I don't prefer it stands on its own.
I'll fly or drive to different places and wear different corporately-prescribed outfits and chat up potential clients in order to help my husband's business.
I'll bite my tongue bloody when my dad compares David Axelrod to Rove on Father's Day. I'll bite it bloody again when one more time we rehash the Time Flavia and I Double Dog Dared The Boys that we could jump in a mud puddle and they couldn't and let's just say the girls won that round. I bite it because I fully intend to rehash every single parenting merit badge I'll have on my sash when my kids are grown.
I'll count to 8000 and hold my temper and not confront someone who just insulted my husband and offended me, because my husband doesn't prefer to confront.
I'll move to Texas from the amazing Gold Coast of Marvelous Massachusetts, because it's the best thing for the family, even though it means leaving behind my job, my career, my career contacts and network, and the adult life I built there. Even though I am unsure what I will find in Texas and how I will build a life here. I will struggle for a few years, trying to find new and different footing, and then, will begin to find something grand and wonderful.
But those are just things, events, happenings.
What about what it takes to do these things? In the end, it's about what matters most, and in the end, in my life, it seems that my relationships with my family are what matters most. That's not easy, and it runs against a variety of conflicting messages about who I should be as a professional, a woman, a modern woman, myself, a mom, a wife, a friend, and so forth.
What's extraordinary about it is that it happens at all...that we can find within ourselves any degree of selflessness and do for others. What's extraordinary about it is that it happens out of love.
What is this capacity and how often do we truly appreciate the amazing compromise to self that it is to be in a long-term relationship of any type?
Tell us your story, either in comments here, or on your own site (in your post, link to here and then add your link below so everyone can track over and read):
Copyright 2008 Julie Pippert
Also blogging at:
Julie Pippert REVIEWS: Get a real opinion about BOOKS, MUSIC and MORE
Julie Pippert RECOMMENDS: A real opinion about HELPFUL and TIME-SAVING products
Moms Speak Up: Talking about the environment, dangerous imports, health care, food safety, media and marketing, education, politics and many other hot topics of concern.
MOMocrats
I'll go to Disneyland for my kids. I promise you, even as a child I had no big driving desire to go there.
I'll go to the Zoo in Houston in the summer for my kids. This one hits so many of my things I don't prefer it stands on its own.
I'll fly or drive to different places and wear different corporately-prescribed outfits and chat up potential clients in order to help my husband's business.
I'll bite my tongue bloody when my dad compares David Axelrod to Rove on Father's Day. I'll bite it bloody again when one more time we rehash the Time Flavia and I Double Dog Dared The Boys that we could jump in a mud puddle and they couldn't and let's just say the girls won that round. I bite it because I fully intend to rehash every single parenting merit badge I'll have on my sash when my kids are grown.
I'll count to 8000 and hold my temper and not confront someone who just insulted my husband and offended me, because my husband doesn't prefer to confront.
I'll move to Texas from the amazing Gold Coast of Marvelous Massachusetts, because it's the best thing for the family, even though it means leaving behind my job, my career, my career contacts and network, and the adult life I built there. Even though I am unsure what I will find in Texas and how I will build a life here. I will struggle for a few years, trying to find new and different footing, and then, will begin to find something grand and wonderful.
But those are just things, events, happenings.
What about what it takes to do these things? In the end, it's about what matters most, and in the end, in my life, it seems that my relationships with my family are what matters most. That's not easy, and it runs against a variety of conflicting messages about who I should be as a professional, a woman, a modern woman, myself, a mom, a wife, a friend, and so forth.
What's extraordinary about it is that it happens at all...that we can find within ourselves any degree of selflessness and do for others. What's extraordinary about it is that it happens out of love.
What is this capacity and how often do we truly appreciate the amazing compromise to self that it is to be in a long-term relationship of any type?
Tell us your story, either in comments here, or on your own site (in your post, link to here and then add your link below so everyone can track over and read):
Copyright 2008 Julie Pippert
Also blogging at:
Julie Pippert REVIEWS: Get a real opinion about BOOKS, MUSIC and MORE
Julie Pippert RECOMMENDS: A real opinion about HELPFUL and TIME-SAVING products
Moms Speak Up: Talking about the environment, dangerous imports, health care, food safety, media and marketing, education, politics and many other hot topics of concern.
MOMocrats
Comments
At the end of the day, it's what I care about the most.
If intent is measured by sacrifice (which I do not believe since internal passion is a force all its own and there's nothing inherently sacrificial about it), I suppose I sacrificed. I sacrificed acceptance by the majority of people who subscribe to a different way of life. I sacrificed the householder life because there are so few who share my passion. This is what gets me out of bed each day. Would I give this up for one person? Absolutely not.
But it's all okay. As a friend of mine used to say years ago, "we all do the work our own way."
One of the things I liked learning from the happiness experts is that happy people are more altruistic and more generous. If we take care of ourselves we really are better able to take care of other people, and we'll enjoy it more too. This has been a tough one for me because my entire life, I've been trained to believe that thinking bout myself took away from what I could give to other people. It's a weird place to be, now, thinking so much about myself.
I totally agree that when it matters the most, you find yourself capable of doing some pretty amazing things for those people around you.
Thanks for this topic.
We drive a 100 miles once a week to specialists. We do extra school work everyday. I now read about education and biology. Subjects I have never been interested in. My husband and I have not bought new clothes for more years than I can count. No trendy purses, shoes, jewelry. This was not a good month and we spent $1200 on prescriptions, vitamins and suppliments. I collect poo and urine samples. Some days I don't think I can go any further and then I wake up the next day and just keep going. I keep hearing that fighting autism is a marathon not a sprint and we are all walking our 500 miles for love.
i think it does take strength to be the mother your kids need, and to compromise. :)
I just realized that I read this at 5:30 this morning, but I didn't comment. So here goes. I think that there are really times we do something simply in the hopes that we make someone happy. In reality though, we do it because we want to see that person happy. Whether or not that person truly becomes happy or not is all up to them. I think that there is some cause and effect, and kindness really is the way to be, but I think that if you really hated Disneyland and couldn't enjoy it at all, you would find other things to do with your kids. Instead, you do it because you want happy kids more than you hate Disneyland. Really you do it because you like happy kids. I read a book called "How to behave so your Children will too," and it really made me think about motive for doing things. We only do things when we truly have a motive. Your motive for moving to Texas was that you want happy kids. If you didn't care whether or not your kids were happy, then it wouldn't matter to you if you moved "for them."
I will cook, clean and possibly kill for them. Considering I do grocery shopping I figure amusement parks shouldn't be too hard?
Much farther than I should have gone.
great list.