Lately, I am feeling marginally fulfilled. I know I am not supposed to be totally fulfilled, because I was raised with the belief that you should never feel too happy, as something bad is always about to happen. Waiting for the proverbial “other shoe” to drop, you know? Like, don’t enjoy anything too much because life is a sonuvabitch (I’m sure this has nothing to do with the Catholicism I abandoned, years ago – deep eye roll).

So yeah, life is a sonuvabitch. I know and accept that this is the part of living that can bring you to low points of sadness, rejection, grief, disappointment. However, this cannot inform how you choose to enjoy your life on a day-to-day basis.

If you can make better choices, do it.

If you can chart the course of your own happiness, do it.

And sometimes charting that course involves tough decisions, like abandoning a toxic relationship, or quitting your job, or moving (ad nauseam, in my own life). I do not believe in languishing in a situation that brings anxiety to one’s present sense of being. I used to do that. I used to hang around and try to force things to work. I even have a tattoo because of it.

I have been told I am honest to a fault, but the real truth is that I can be loyal to a fault as well. Giving the benefit of the doubt repeatedly takes both energy and patience. But you have to know when enough has been given, lest you morph into a doormat.

So there it is. If you are feeling “marginally fulfilled” – even if it may be temporary – what is the cause? How long has the irritant existed? Is it temporary? Does someone keep telling you over and over that it is only temporary? Who is that person? Do you trust them? Should you continue to trust them?

What if that person is you?

When you see a time to embrace transformation, what steps must you take to walk into the challenge?

I’m starting to count those steps, in advance, trying to measure the effort that is needed. It seems difficult, but I will not know how difficult until I begin. So I might as well start.