Certainly Unsure

It’s that time of year. Mother Nature can’t decide what season she wants to be. The trees don’t want to give up their foliage yet but some leaves refuse to continue clinging to the branches. Flowers and vegetables that have been pruned and harvested unexpectedly sprout new blooms. Depending where and when you want to look, one can find summer, fall, and even suggestions of spring and winter.

We often experience the same feelings, unsure of what we want to be. Or of what we need to be for a particular time.

The summer is long behind us, yet autumn doesn’t seem to be here just yet. Stores are filling up with Halloween and Thanksgiving candies, foods, and decorations while we seek out those last outdoor moments at our grills and in our yards. We have already heard someone say, “Christmas will be here before you know it.” It is a time when there really is so much to do but also a time when honestly, we’d just as soon sit on the deck and watch the leaves get ready to fall.

Queen Elizabeth I said, “They pass best over this world who trip over it quickly, for it is but a bog. If we stop, we sink.”

Perhaps that is the best way to approach the changes of seasons or indeed anytime when one feels disconnected with their environment. Move quickly, skip even. Do not dwell, do not dawdle, and definitely do not stop. But perhaps not always physically. Find that which will keep mind and spirit occupied even when your body is craving a time out. Give each moment its due, then move on.

When life challenges get you, whether by throwing obstacles in your path, Trying you with unexpected tests, or confusing you with contradictory feelings and ideas, it is giving you a new chance to learn and grow, to discover a talent you didn’t have, or to strengthen and hone the skills you have learned and already possess. If by the end of the day you feel exhausted, you probably got all you could from it. Don’t worry if all your thoughts and remembrances of the day aren’t positive. Life is a balance. Some exciting, some dull. Some joyful, some angry. Some good, some bad.

When the world isn’t sure exactly what it wants to be is a good time to explore all the possibilities of what you can be. Soon Mother Nature will make up her mind and settle on one season. Soon the trees will be bare. Soon, even the latest blooming flowers will lose their luster.

It might seem that the course is set and there is no stopping the changes that will come, but unlike the the seasons and the tree and the flowers, you can control your destiny. You can make it summer all year long or leave the Christmas lights on in September. And you can change your mind tomorrow. Be open to the possibility that whatever you are doing is what is right for you. Even on the days when you aren’t sure of what you are going to do.

Sometimes Mother Nature seems confused. You can be too. It will still work out well.