نتیجه گیری

CONCLUSION

LET’S START

I’ve saved my hardest story for last. Maybe I felt like I needed you to be really invested before I shared it, but more likely it’s because the idea of telling this story scares me to my core. I want to share it with you because I know I’ve been asking you for a lot throughout this book. I’ve challenged you to work hard to change your mindset and to create a life centered on your priorities. And I realize this might feel incredibly difficult, especially if you have a past to overcome—a past that has let you down, that has disappointed you and made you feel like this life you are wanting is always just out of reach.

I’ve encouraged you to let go of old stories, and now it’s time to let go of one of mine . . .

I bought my first home at the age of twenty-three. I was single and fresh out of my first year of teaching. My friends all thought I was crazy, but they also told me how amazing it was that I didn’t wait to make my dream come true. They called me strong. And I liked it—because deep inside I knew I was not.

No one knew why I suddenly had the burning desire to buy a house. They didn’t know I did it only to prove to myself that I could create a life of my own. They didn’t know I was doing it because I was secretly running from myself. Truth be told, I had been running from my own shadow for years at that point.

Back in my sophomore year of college, I had moved into an apartment complex along with seven of my sorority sisters. We lived across the parking lot from one another, like a real-life version of Friends. We were constantly at each other’s apartments having impromptu dinners or getting dressed together on Friday nights. I loved it.

Late one evening as I was getting out of the shower, I heard a noise on my porch. I knew my roommate was out for the night, so I peered outside and could just make out the outline of a man doing his very best to break into my apartment. I turned on the porch light, but that didn’t seem to faze him at all. He rattled and shook the windows; he twisted and yanked on the doorknob.

I won’t get into the details of how I ended up face-to-face with this tall psychopath on my front porch, but let it suffice for me to tell you that for three months I slept in my roommate’s bed. She eventually insisted she was tired of me hogging the covers and made me move back into my own bedroom. Once I did, I went to bed with a baseball bat nestled on the pillow next to me. But I didn’t sleep.

Eventually I learned to lessen the tight grip on my bat. Life moved on, but I continued to keep a vigilant watch as I walked to my car in a parking garage, and I was always overly guarded when I was alone in my apartment—every noise made me jump. When I went out with friends, I was incredibly cautious; I was almost always the designated driver because I didn’t want to feel out of control in a room full of strangers. For years I couldn’t be alone once the sun went down.

And then one night, one terrible night, I went out with a friend for dinner and dancing. That night was no different from any of the other nights I went out—I drank cokes rather than vodka—but somehow I found myself stumbling back home at 5:00 a.m. with mascara-stained cheeks, dazed and battered, with my shirt on backward and inside out.

I remember my fingers shaking as I tried to put the key into the lock, and then I tumbled into my bedroom, taking one look at myself in the mirror and turning away in disgust. My cheeks filled with a deep shame I didn’t really deserve. I twisted the dial of my shower to scalding hot and scrubbed my body raw. Still wrapped in a towel with lobster-red skin, I angrily yanked my sheets off the bed and grabbed armfuls of my clothing from the closet, and threw them into the washer. Even though it wasn’t my fault, I still felt a disgrace I wanted to scrub away. I was desperate for my world to feel clean again.

I told no one. No one at all. I did nothing but silently tear myself apart as if I were to blame for the darkness I was living through. And then one morning I woke up (I use the term “woke up” here ironically since I was, once again, no longer sleeping at night) and decided I wasn’t going to live that life of being a victim again. I’d had enough of that in my past. I called a listing agent two days later and began the search for a house. I needed to prove to myself I would be okay being on my own.

And I did. I bought a house, I taught myself home repair, and I patched and painted my little home. Six months later John moved in next door, and my story of how I bought a tiny little house and married my next-door neighbor seemed magical, but it was always steeped, in my mind, in my secret.

I am telling you this story not because I want you to believe I am strong. I am telling you so that you can see that I felt weak. I was too afraid for a very long time to speak up.

We all have times in our lives when we feel like this. I feel certain that you, too, have had times when you felt like you were a victim, just like I did. Some of us have been victims of oppression, many of us have been victims of our situations, and lots of us are victims of our circumstances or upbringings.

But we all are survivors.

We can choose to see ourselves as we really want to be. We don’t have to fake it until we make it. We can, as psychologist Amy Cuddy shared in her TED Talk, “fake it till [we] become it.” I want to encourage you to remember that you are stronger/faster/smarter/better than you think. That, I can guarantee you.

Our lives are filled with highs and lows. For me, the valley I was in was low and deep, and there were times when I couldn’t feel the warmth of the sun. There is a strength inside of us, though. Even when we feel weak, it’s there deep inside.

We can take our experiences and allow them to swallow us whole, or we can use them as fuel to drive us, to push the boundaries of what we know and break beyond our comfort zones—to find the path our North Star is ready to light.

I’ve moved forward, but I haven’t forgotten. There are still nights when John is gone and I lie awake, fearful of every noise in the dark. I continue to stay hypervigilant when walking by myself, and I’ll never go to a grocery store alone at night. Not ever. These parts of me will never go away; they are woven into the fabric of me. But I have come to peace with that. I can choose to see these parts of myself as flaws, or I can see them as the scars I’ve acquired over my life. Scars that used to be raised, angry-red welts that now have faded into silvery trails, marking the path where I’ve been.

We all have scars, my friend.

What is holding you back from your fulfilling life? Is it fear? Is it the comfort and safety of what you already know? Yes, this book is about productivity, but at its heart, it’s about the choices we make: the hard choices, the easy choices, the everyday choices. Our lives are defined by choices.

And now you need to make a choice. Do you want to stay on the path you are on, or do you want to make some changes to work toward the life you want?

Take one step forward, one tiny step, each and every day. Each step of this process builds upon the last, creating a strong framework for a fulfilling life. We began with a foundation of discovery that helps us clarify how we want to spend our time. This clarity in turn reveals how we need to integrate simplicity into our daily lives. And finally the simplicity allows us to live a life of harmony—a life of contentment because we are living true to ourselves. At the heart of each of these four sections we’ve been adjusting our beliefs, our boundaries, and our behaviors, all of which influence our lives and affect our productivity.

The red thread running through and anchoring each step is priority. It is possible to live a life centered on what matters most; happiness is possible when you make every day count. You just have to choose to begin.

Today is a good day to start.

LET ME HELP

Before you allow the back cover to close on this book, I have one last question for you: Did the messages of this book resonate with you?

Slow down and rethink busy.

Focus on priorities.

Live a life that feels meaningful to you.

Choose a life centered on your priorities.

Embrace the joy of missing out.

If they did . . . if you believe this life you have dreamed of in the past is now more within reach, let’s spread this message. One of the most powerful ways to instill change in ourselves is by being accountable to others who are willing to support us.

I want to encourage you to pull together a group of friends and ask them to read this book so you can work through the questions together. Agree to meet often to go through the exercises and activities, to cheer one another on and pull one another up when you stumble (because there will be stumbles). Talk about what you agree with—and what you don’t.

Strip aside the facades of the perfect life and share with one another. Be real and honest with one another—and yourselves.

We are much stronger together. Let’s start this movement.