The joy of being 59-and-a-half is that you finally "get" that the only opinion that matters is your own, and that of the Divine (however you name it.)
OK, well, that's the joy of being me at 59-and-a-half! From talking to friends, I know that many of us are in this place, or arriving at this place, but I don't know for sure if it is universal.
My particular journey seems to have been set in motion in order to make darned sure that I learned this lesson; when you are trying to make an 180 degree course correction in the shortest possible time, and you literally don't always know from day to day or week to week where you will be living or how, exactly, the current situation figures into the bigger picture, then believe me, you are a magnet for other people's well-meaning opinions, advice, suggestions, fears and even overt criticism. The younger me took all of these things to heart. I assumed that just about everyone else on the planet was right, and that I was wrong, even about my own life.
I so wanted to please others that the slightest criticism or indication that someone thought I was on the wrong track used to make me sick to my stomach. Even when I watched TV, with its glorification of a whole, to me, bizarre set of values and lifestyles, I used to question why I couldn't like what other people liked. Slowly, though, as I have begun to trust my link to the Divine and my inner knowing and instincts, I have begun to recognize and embrace who I really am and what I love. Now, when I experience rejections, failures, relationships that get rocky or strange, or things around me that seem out of kilter, I just try to breathe through and ask myself, in this interaction, did I remain (relatively!) love-filled and fearless? If the answer is yes, then it's possible the other person or institution or situation is just simply on such a different wavelength from me, that we might never in a million years be expected to see things exactly the same. Or I may be outgrowing something, The challenge, of course, is not to focus too much on what is fraying around the edges, but rather on what my inner guidance is telling me about where I am headed.
I'm human. I still get frustrated with people, and with situations that I dearly wish I could "blame" on someone else. But we are all unique expressions of life energy. All 7 billion of us. I cannot make 7 people happy, much less 7 billion people. I can make myself happy by gradually aligning to the activities, places and situations that reflect the happiest side of me, and I can make my creator happy by loving the real me and my honored place in the Divine world. And it's actually a good thing that, at 59-and-a-half, I just simply haven't got the energy to attempt to please everyone on the planet. That makes me joyful today!
