Recovering from suffering is not like recovering from a disease. Many people don’t come out healed; they come out different.

-‘What Suffering Does’ by David Brooks (Opinion column in New York Times) April 7, 2014

In life, there are many events that happen to add to a person’s stress level, amongst them being the loss of one’s job.  I did not lose my job, although I do have to adjust my life in a way that I am better able to manage my free time, which recently has become much more plentiful.  

The above quote could pretty much apply to more serious events that have occurred in my life, although my mind is currently on discovering a purpose for myself, and how to handle the day to day tasks of life.  With purpose; I need to chose a purpose or direction, and come out changed from the suffering.

I have started attending yoga classes around 2 years ago, when we my husband and I bought a townhouse in Burke Centre.  There are classes held in the community center right next to the pool, and up the street from my house.  You can walk along this path at the end of my street and  boom, there you are running into this old plantation style house in which is called the Woods Community Center where the class is held. There are a lot of nice walking trails in Burke Centre.  And what a beautiful day it is!  So, with purpose, I woke at 7ish, fed, played and let the dog out in the backyard, and then jumped in the shower.  I went walking with my dog for a glorious 30 minutes through the neighborhood all while listening to the tunes of Lily Allen bursting through the headphones from my phone.  And I got a cool new smartphone like everyone else has! (For years, I have resisted going the smartphone way and having the good dependable phone only for calling and texting; citing a smartphone as too much of a procrastination tool;  I reasoned I have tablet, and I can use that to read, surf the ‘web’, and Facebook in my down time at home.  But while vacationing in Florida with my parents, I got addicted to their phones.  Primarily, I thought I get so many emails and its always a pain to sit down at a computer and read them all, and that takes up a lot of my free time in itself. And decided to take the plunge into the technologically adapt world in which we currently live.)  Upon returning from my walk, it was almost time for my yoga class.

I love this whole yoga thing.  Yoga is a state of mind.  Maybe that could be my philosophy to my purpose in my life currently.  The purpose could be self improvement.  Self improvement by doing exactly what I stated before, through gardening (the new fence is up, so let the flowers begin!) through health consciousness, [i.e. walking, regular yoga practice, GOING TO THE POOL WHEN IT FINALLY OPENS!] intellectually [through reading books, and articles, blogging], taking care of my Chazz-y dog and I can’t forget first and foremost loving my residents when I do come in to work!

So I am defined as a loving, appreciative person.  With lots of things to acknowledge other than “what I do” (occupationally) in life.  It’s time to take a break, have fun, appreciate the beauty of nature and pay attention to my family.  Perhaps I could even try to cook…