Next on the list … ?

I am a planner, a planner by nature. I like to make lists … OK, I LOVE to make lists. I compulsively make lists. If you looked in my purse right now, you would probably find five or six different lists: shopping lists (subdivided by store, of course), to-do lists (in order of what is most urgent), packing lists (going on an early 3rd anniversary weekend getaway to Atlanta) and lists planning events (like my upcoming Kentucky Derby party).

The thing is, even though I love, love, love to plan, I really do not love to do the things on my lists. But lately, I have been struggling even more with the doing part. Somehow I feel like if I write it down, that counts for something. I was planning on sewing those new curtains after all. See? It’s written down. Who cares if it is 2 months later?

But not doing is a serious problem. My lists get out of control, and I get stressed out … so overwhelmed that I don’t know where to start. So I do nothing, which helps nothing. I have learned in that past few years that I am not an intrinsically motivated person. I feed off other people, whether it is from their good or bad traits. When I was in high school, I used other people’s negative life choices to motivate me to make different choices. When I was in college, I surrounded myself with highly motivated people who made me want to “go places” in life.

Now, I feel isolated at times. Sure, I have friends, but unlike in high school or college, they are not so closely in tune with where I am in life. We are not making the same life choices (such as where to go to college, what to study, what internship to apply for). So I have to learn to motivate myself, and I’m not as good at it as I would like to be.

Part of the problem is that – this is going to sound kind of snobbish and elitist, and I really don’t want it to come across that way – I have been blessed enough to have accomplished most of my major life goals.

Let me explain.

My whole life I was motivated by making a different life for myself than the one in which I grew up. I was going to move away from that dinky, loser town, get a college education, have a career, meet a great guy, get married, be financially stable and buy a house.

By the grace of God, those things have happened for me. And I am so incredibly grateful and don’t want to sound like I am rubbing it in anyone’s face, for I certainly do not deserve an ounce of it.
But what is next?

I know some of you are thinking, “Well, logically speaking, children are next.” But I don’t know that I am ready for that one yet. (This could be a whole other post.)

For the first time in my life, I don’t know what’s next on my checklist of goals. In fact, I don’t even have a list. And that weirds me out. And makes me incredibly unmotivated. I’m not complaining; this isn’t a bad place to be. My husband reminds me that I really, really stink at just “being,” soaking in the moment, loving where I am.

Maybe that is what is next: learning to just be, to live in the now, to be joyful and grateful for all of God’s gifts, to stop and smell the proverbial roses.

So here I am, my unmotivated self, praying about what I should be excited about next in life. And praying that I would be excited about NOW.