The curated life

Strange, but true - all of what you're about to read is totally new to me.  Came out of the blue!

Love my Friday morning cuppas with a dear friend!  Bid her au revoir just before noon, headed down to Be Well Cafe for a Lady Violet Smoothie.  

Turning onto the Pike, musing on how supercharged with wondrous energies my life has become over the past year, was hit with an unconsciously bidden thought - maybe a next step is to start curating my life.

My actual next step was to figure out what the heck that even meant.  Curate my life?  I have family who curate things to put on the internet, reading through & whittling down material to share with others.  I have friends who curate art work for a gallery show, figuring out which pieces to show & where.  But to curate my life?  It felt right, but I had no idea why.

So, I did what comes naturally - an "curate life" online search.  And there are articles on doing just that!  A lot of them.  But only one seemed to talk right to me.  A HuffPo piece, Curating Your Own Life, by Amanda Slavin.  

Surely, Amanda & I have met, had great times together in another life, an alternate universe!  

Amanda feels her biggest strength is being a connector, someone who asks insightful questions, listens to stories, gets a feel for the person sharing them, then helps them link with others for mutually beneficial outcomes.  How I wish that describes me!  It is one of my greatest goals, so including it as describing my FUTURE self.

Mst of what I do can't really be described in high tech terms.  I use digital media a bit as support.  Yes,  CATT is internet-based.  But tech isn't at the heart of anything I do.  That would be cultivating relationships - with others and especially with their self, in the present moment & arcing back through time. 

Thinking about curating my own life, helping others - especially older friends & clients - curate their own, was a mega energy boost.  What among all the things scattered around my life do I want to use to develop a theme?  Decide which pieces support that, set aside the ones that don't, spotlight the ones that do.  In both scenarios, this concept, this imaging, works surprisingly well.

That image - curating my life - provides a terrific visual for me, important since I am very visual.  As are a lot of my older friends & clients - it is often easier for me to envision a concrete something rather than a disembodied concept.

Amanda writes about the vital importance of aligning "yourself with people and situations that support your visions, dreams and values..."  Whoa!  Get outta here!  Did she REALLY write that?  Had to read it twice to accept - yep, she had.  Not the same order as I do, but the same terms.  

Oh my gosh!  I am SO not alone!

Which is a challenging thing for ME to write, because my emotional default is still to expect others to not be supportive.  Old old old, so ready to be given the final boot.  Wait - Amanda just did!   

Okay, what else does this Life Curating Goddess have to share?  "Prioritize where your energy is being expended and to whom. You don’t want anyone in your life that treats you like an option while you are treating that individual like a priority."    

Seriously?  It's okay to do that?  Wait - it's ESSENTIAL to do that?  Cool...

Amanda reminds me to ponder the five people with whom I'd like most to spend my time.  These represent the best ME.  That is so uplifting, not just because they are pretty awesome people, but because I can take steps to be more in contact with them, in spite of living many states, countries, oceans away from them. 

Well, I can see how easy it would be to give Amanda A LOT of my time, but I have other steps that need taking that are not writing a blog posting.  Am closing this for now, with the promise that I'll be back to share more wisdom from Amanda with y'all.

To sum up, here's what I've learned over the past few hours:

• We are each born to be curators of a great life, choosing what to include, what to spotlight & - just as importantly - what to set aside, what to admire without needing to make our own, what NOT to include.  
• Seems to me this becomes more & more important the older we get, as we more closely guard our once abundant energies, efforts, awareness.
• Notice the people we tend to admire, the ones with whom we long to share our time.  Odds are we are like them.  Which qualities do we relate to most?  Which ones would we like to nurture more?  Have fun - do it!
• Cut back time with people who don't give life a boost, whose lives are invigorated having us around. 
• "Surround yourself with people you love, in every aspect of your life, including work."

All true, no matter what your age.  ESPECIALLY true as we grow older.  Wise tips that too many of my older friends don't follow - and should!




Whether we're in our teens, twenties, thirty- forty- fifty-something, edging toward 65, topping 80 or about hit the big 100, we are all called to curate our life, to pick out what works best for us, to place it in its best light, to experience a life of appreciation, joy & connection.  


Credits:
randystuart.blogspot.com
levo.com
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