A Lifestyle Makeover: one woman’s story
By Sooz Kelly

Once I turned 49 years old at the end of the 20th century and knowing that I’d be reaching my 50th birthday in the year 2000, a feeling of panic and desperation began to unfold. I was still single and childless by choice. My support group of friends all seemed to have drifted away, either geographically or emotionally. The relationships I’d been in left me broken-hearted in the love department. I was in the 28th year of a career in public service that left me unfulfilled and dissatisfied. I found myself being fairly successful, but at something I loathed doing.

I was born with a craving for knowledge and information. I wanted to know all of the answers. Even as a teen, I began exploring personal growth, philosophy and psychology. Throughout my twenties, thirties and forties I was an avid consumer of all I could find on metaphysics, motivation, new age, spirituality, and what has been called the human potential movement. Wayne Dyer, Deepak Chopra, Tony Robbins, Shakti Gawain, Susan Jeffers, Ram Dass and other authors were my constant companions on road trips as I listened to their tapes in my car.

As I devoured all of these books and listened to tapes, I knew there had to be something more. I knew I had the power within me to create the life I felt I was supposed to be living. For some reason, I was having difficulty assimilating all of the knowledge, concepts and theories and integrating them into my daily life.

I had allowed myself to be stalled by roadblocks and obstacles along the way - things I could have overcome had I chosen to do so. Instead, I spent a couple years of my free time wasting away in chat rooms on the Internet, and a couple more years watching nearly every movie from the neighborhood Blockbuster. I really didn't care if I woke up in the mornings. For many years, I didn't feel as though there was any reason or purpose to my life, and that my presence here on earth was some kind of mistake.

Even though I felt I had a good understanding of all that I had learned, I really didn't know how to put it into practice in my life. I didn't know how to be happy, because I didn't know what it would take to make me happy. I didn't know what it was like to experience joy and bliss on a regular basis. So I was really turned off whenever I had to encounter a Susie Sunshine who thought life was wonderful every single day. I'd only ever experienced that for a couple days at a time every few years or so. I really didn't think that I was capable of being a happy person.

As my 50th year continued to creep up on me, and my family and friends were dwindling in numbers, I began to obsess on what my mature years would be like. What if I become ill? Who would look after me? Who would look after my interests if I were hospitalized? Would I be stuck away in a county hospital for the indigent? Who would clear out my belongings when I die? I developed a terrible fear of aging in a country that continues to idolize and idealize youth. The days of passing as a young chickie were long gone. And having increased in size in recent years, I wasn't about to be mistaken for Ally McBeal.

In the spring of my 49th year, I acknowledged that the condition of my life was the result of my own actions - or inactions. I alone was responsible for the way I had been living my life. Wait, make that surviving. And I hadn't even been doing a very good job of that. I knew that I was bright, intelligent, with a variety of marketable skills, yet I had allowed myself to stagnate in a public service job that had become barely tolerable, and with an adequate pension plan. People would ask me how long I had been with my employer, and my standard reply was, "28 years. I'm eligible for parole in five years." That always got a laugh, but sadly, I felt that I had become imprisoned in a job I loathed, alongside the original Stepford Workers. If I didn't take some action to change my life, I feared that the stress and tension would continue to build to the point that I wouldn't even live to see age 55 and my pension. Since my mother died of cancer at age 55, that was a very significant number that loomed strongly in front of me.

I knew that I had the knowledge. I knew that I had the ability to set about a plan of action. I knew all about goal setting and objectives. I knew I had the ability and desire to write and communicate. I wanted to be able to share my knowledge with other people. But I also felt like a charlatan because I hadn't yet totally integrated and manifested all of my beliefs into every day life. I knew that no one else was going to come along and magically transform my life. The only person who could do that was me.

Things started to come to a head in the workplace for the umpteenth time, and the Howard Beale (from the 1976 film Network) inside of me starting screaming "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!" One morning, I came to work to be greeted by an email announcing that a 26-year employee of my agency was leaving and moving to Arizona. This woman had been an icon in our agency for years; she never had backed down to management and always fought for employee rights - she was a real-life white collar Norma Rae. "If she's able to leave," I thought, "what am I still doing here?" It was in an instant that I knew that I could take action and create the life I wanted to live - or I could continue to stagnate and drop dead on the job.

It was my choice. It was my decision. Just as it is yours. You must be experiencing some type of dissatisfaction in your own life or you wouldn't have kept reading to this point. As you read through some of the articles on this site, take an honest look at yourself, at your life. Is this the way you want to be living for the next 20, 30 or 50 years? If you are not happy with your situation, learn what you can do to change it. Hopefully, you'll find something here - a book, a tape, some words of inspiration - that will help you along the way.

About the author:
Sooz Kelly is the featured writer on PassionSpirit.com. Visit Sooz's personal website: SoozKelly.com.
 

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