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betterfor4-blog · 5 years

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My Pursuit of Happiness Manifesto

--- In a nutshell (to take the time to read or not): This post gives context to my life, why I have started this blog, the clear goals I have set for my family and how I am going to manage it. ----

Dear Universe and the Human Race,

The Context of My Life

Thank you for my life. Through nothing else but chance and luck I find myself truly blessed (in a completely non-religious way). Even if I didn’t intend, plan or pursue it, I find myself in my late 30s with a beautiful old-fashioned, very-not-cool nuclear family. We could be the poster family for hetero-normative, white, 2 young kids and a dog in an average brick house. Please don’t for a second though think that I believe or promote this as the only way as being. This is the context for my life, however, I am open-minded and supportive of all the different kinds of ways that family and love exists in this world.

I acknowledge that I live on this planet in a way many cannot or will never get the opportunity to. I acknowledge that the way I live is because of the toil of many who will never have my privilege.

Completely off life-plan I married my first love who I met when I was a teenager. He is intelligent, gorgeous, compassionate, funny, loyal and simply a good person (if not sometimes a little too ‘linear/pragmatic/black and white in his thinking). We both had opportunities to become well educated and ambition to form our own independent careers. We both trained and work in the Sciences; I am an educator. We lived exciting lives with lots of travel and friends and then 3 years ago we welcomed our first lovely daughter into this world (Miss C1). Late last year our family was completed by our second lovely daughter (Miss C2).

The Reason For This Blog And What I Want In This Life

I am genuinely happy, 8/10, like Scandinavian happy (those guys have it all worked out). I know who I am and I am very clear in my mind about my goals, values and ambitions for myself and my family. I have prefaced and contextualized my life in this post however, as my problems are slight, though they still exist an I am in pursuit of happiness (9 and 10 numbers).

I want to live meaningfully in this life and raise my girls consciously and with clear intent. I want our family activities, daily life and conversations to be ‘rich’ in the holistic manner of the word rather than the dollars and cents version. I want for a lot and have some clear goals/thoughts:

1. MINIMALISM - I want to live better with less...

- I want to spend less on the stuff we don’t need.

- I don’t want to waste things (especially food and other such resources).

- I want every item in our home to bring joy, be useful and used frequently.

- I wish to invest in family experiences more than things.

- I don’t want to get caught up in the fast fashion cycle, buying my girls $2 t-shirts that last 3 washes and are thrown away at the cost of both environment and people.

- I want high quality goods that are fixed or re-purposed rather than just thrown away.

- I want to our modest block of land to be productive for

- I don’t want to spend my life cleaning or battling with storing stuff making our home and lives less enjoyable.

- I want a clean and organised house that I don’t have to feel burdened by maintaining but I am not ashamed by unexpected guests.

2. Experiential Based Family Life - I want our daily lives to be rich in conversation and experiences.

- Less Screen time or maybe more meaningful screen time for everybody.

- More games and playing.

- More travel and family experiences more frequently.

- More nature in our daily lives. More getting outside.

- Ensure my girls get the best education possible by exposing them to opportunities and educational experiences. Peppa Pig is not nearly educational enough (read severe sarcasm).

3. HEALTH - A Healthier Family

For us health comes in 3 pillars: sleep, food and exercise. To be honest all are crumbling a little at the moment...

- I am overweight and have been my entire adult life and I want to rectify that for the most important reason in the world; it gives me the best chance to be with my family for the longest amount of time. I’ll blog about this later.

- I want my family to eat well and diversely. I want my girls to have a good relationship with food where no food is forbidden. I need to create strategies and structures to allow and develop this.

- We need to be working towards 8 hours of sleep a night, the girls need more.

- We need strategies in our lives than ensures that Mum and Dad are getting at least 10,000 steps a day and some cardio (I would love to know how far Miss C1 goes in a Day).

4. IMPROVE MY IDENTITY CAPITAL - be the best Mum I can be.

I think for the first time in my life I am ready to live by the wisdom of ‘taking care of yourself before others’ (the old apply your oxygen mask in a plane emergency before helping others). I am tapped out, my cup is dry... whatever you want to call it.

Basically, I am a stay at home Mum with 2 girls under 3 and I am TIRED. Not just sleep deprived but emotionally exhausted. I feel like junk and everywhere I look I see work to be done. Worst thing yet, I just returned from a holiday super relaxed. Which was good, because it reinforced to me that I am more than run down, I am depleted.

I want more ‘arrows in my quiver’. In short, as my husband would put it I need more diverse identity capital. I need to my life to be filled with hobbies and activities and people to recover some of my energy and zest for life. Yet at the same time I feel the Social Media Direct Messenger culture of 21st Century melts my mind a little.

Previously, my job consumed me and that is the way I liked it. I have chosen however to sacrifice my career in order to give my girls the best chance (see goal 2-5). Staying at home was not an emotionally easy choice, but an easy logical one. I am an educator. This is what I do. The idea of returning to work (when I didn’t have to) and allowing someone else to raise and educate my girls at this early stage seemed like insanity. I am also lucky that the system I work for holds my job for me for about 6 years. But back to the point, it left a career sized hole in my life that of late has been harder to fill.

My mind is a fog of fruit pouches, nappies and nursery rhymes. Yet, I know that this time of my life will pass faster than I will in retrospect have liked it to. Before it does though I need to write in full sentences on a regular basis. I need to stretch my mind. I need to model to my girls how you can work towards a work-life balance.

Vainly, I am also in desperate need of a Mum makeover. I need some Mum style before my girls start school. B.C. (before children) I had work clothes and a few casual pieces. 2 pregnancies and no work later I am adrift in my new life, at least style wise, and it has left me feeling fairly invisible.

5. WEALTH - I want us all to be grateful for what we have and show that.

This one really doesn’t need dot points. My family are privileged and that is not a crime, but to become entitled or not appreciate our good fortune, well that is. I want us to not waste and give back where we can as often as we can.

As for our actual finances. I figure if we live more mindfully with less we will spend less. The money we save will be able to fund our experiences and travel. It is the old “take care of the cents and the dollars will take care of themselves” approach. I will be exploring this later though.

Summary

So on rereading this, two things I note.

- I sound far more ‘hippy-dippy’ than I feel I am, but the list is accurate. I wonder if this resonates with other 21st Century slightly left-leaning Mum’s out there? Where is my tribe?

- I am WAY daunted by this list. To set an appropriate mental image I am sitting at my dining room table eating a carrot as the baby bashes her drink bottle on her highchair pulverizing crackers into dust (now on the floor) and the toddler is talking to me asking constant ‘why’ questions. The latest question was “why do doctors say you can’t jump on the bed?” referring to the song ‘5 little Monkies’. Both of these things are an improvement from 30 minutes ago where they were both competing to press any buttons they could on my laptop.

How Will I Achieve This?

Don’t know in short. But I know this... I cancelled my gym membership recently because getting there with the two girls was near impossible and ridiculously expensive once I paid for the creche for the both of them. I felt like I had lost something too. Like the cards were proverbially stacked against me and my fitness goals as a stay at home Mum (CHAINED TO THE HOUSE I TELL YOU). On the way home though I questioned why I honestly needed the gym, more specifically an instructor telling me to ‘sashay’. I decided on two reasons. The first, the group environment means I won’t quit as I would never give in when being observed by others. The second, because the instructor had the knowledge.

It occurred to me on that trip home that I could replace those classes with YouTube and a blog. A blog to keep me honest and check in (even if no one reads it) and YouTube for the knowledge. The internet is a global community of ‘DIY knowledge’ and all I had to do was harness it.

So that is the strategy for this blog. I am going to use the power of the internet to learn, share and record my improvements.

How Will I Measure Progress And What Is The Timeline?

I am going to have to research that on the internet (LOL). I think I am going to need different tools for different aspects of my life.

I am going to start by posting Mon, Wed, Fri and tackling a different aspect each time:

Monday - Health

Wednesday - Minimalism

Friday - Experiences

I am writing this to no one in particular and everyone in order to keep myself honest and on track in the way I am going to change our lives.

The purpose of this blog and particularly long post... I’ve got to be better for the four of us. I have to live my best life to honor this extraordinary life I have been gifted.

#mumlife #stayathomemomlife #familylife #happiness #bebetter #privilegedlife #makingachange #family #betterhealth #minamilism #scandihappy #betterfor4 #mumtribe

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