Polar or Pinterest Vortex?

Did you catch the contradiction?

Hello, my name is Kristy, and I'm a quote junkie. Over the past ten years or so, I've been on a 2-3 time a day habit of not only looking on Pinterest but also pinning quotes to my own boards. The boards are another thing--I have created so many boards (folders for those on the outside) that it's nearly as bad as Google Drive when I try to find something.

And the "private" boards... don't get me started. You mean there's an option where I can hide the crazy of my brain while also getting a fix?! Been there, done that, and I'll probably turn some of them into a t-shirt at some point.

Now that I've leveled with you, I feel like I can share a sample of the madness that quotes generate for me. In my personal and professional lives, I can see how consistency is key. If you want something badly enough, you need to feed that vision even when you're not feeling passionate about it. You need to find what works and continuously pursue that path, because wavering often leads to failure or the demise of will power.

If that's the case, then what in God's glorious name do I do with this:

HUH?

Let's evaluate these two images:

• Same black background
• Same white lettering
• Same font
• CONTRADICTING MESSAGES!

This is where I get lost--not in the POLAR vortex, but the PINTEREST vortex.

We can talk about the fact that I'm seeking sage advice from a site that blends "pin" and "interests" at a later time, but for now, let's just focus on the fact that quotes like this are swirling all around us--they're in magazines and on water bottles and tattooed on our skin.

What do you do when faced with such conflicting messages? Whether in quotes or out of the mouths of friends and family, what do you do when one person says you've done enough and another tells you to push yourself a little more?

It's one thing to be at the gym when your trainer says to go for an extra minute to challenge yourself, but what about the less visible aspects of life? Choosing to lean in or lean out of that career choice, that relationship, that big purchase, that potential move... it's seemingly pointless to reach out for advice knowing that conflicting messages are around the corner to further confuse you.

If I've learned anything from this natural contradiction, it's that there is NO RIGHT ANSWER. We can excuse and explain everything. Call it fate, serendipity, free will, God's Hand, or any other version of the hope that our choices aren't actually steering our lives, at some point we simply need to accept the fact that life doesn't come with a manual, and if you try to live it "perfectly" or attempt to soak up every experience it can offer, you can't. You will fail.

At some point when I was growing up, I had this realization that one day I will die never having seen every single movie there is to see. While this seems like a strange a-ha moment, it's such a pure awareness that life has a lot to offer, and you'll never see it all or be it all, so embrace who and what you can along the way, knowing that it's how you experience it, not what you experience.

At the end of the day, I'm sure there are incredible movies I'll miss out on and others I would have wanted 120 minutes of my life back from, but for those I do experience, I have the choice in how I perceive them. If a great movie leads me to reflection and discussion with friends, a bad movie could just as easily lead me to fantastic conversation with friends about how awful it was and to have a big belly laugh over it.

I guess life is a lot like that. Do we dwell on what went wrong and what we potentially missed out on, or do we soak in the beauty of the experiences we are able to have?

Life is about choices, and I'm learning that it's less about which choices we make and more about how we perceive the impact of our choices. 

I'm finding that the more I let go of how I feel about my choices and the more I focus on being mindful and grateful of the reality right in front of me, the more beautiful and blessed I am.

Here's to staying warm, avoiding the Pinterest vortex, and soaking in the present,

Kristy