Inspired

There are so many people who inspire me. One who is new(ish) to me is Ben Hewitt. I haven’t explained much of my life yet – so before I lead you to assume otherwise, I’ll just say that my and Ben’s lives are likely very different. If you know anything about him, you’ll know he lives off the grid on a farm. I… do not. What we do seem to have in common is the desire to create a life filled with love, beauty and peace. This quote from a recent blog post of his really spoke to me:

“It is always comforting to me to spend time with people who have figured out how to make their lives work for them, and I’ve come to realize that my greatest respect is for those whose ambition (if even you want to call it that) is reserved for creating a peaceful life.”

It reminds me of my all time favorite quote:

“It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Self-Reliance

Living a “peaceful life” isn’t easy. There is so much pressure from society – the “crowd” – to be and do. I find it difficult at times to sit back and say “no” or “no, not yet.” I’m a recovering people pleaser (I can feel my pulse quicken just writing that), and my annoyance at the term “FOMO” is probably something I should peel back a little more. So while it’s easy to have ideals – my desire for a peaceful life filled with a tribe of folks working at creating the same – dear Emerson reminds me that those ideals may be lived out easily in solitude, but what about in the crowd? Sometimes the crowd doesn’t understand or even want peace or solitude. And you know what I’ve learned? And maybe Emerson knew this as well. The crowd, when you get down to it, doesn’t matter all that much. Don’t get me wrong. I love community and people fascinate me, but maybe we’re just not meant to justify ourselves to every last person out there. Why would we be? Still, it’s not always easy to march to your own peace-loving drummer.

So what does all of this mean? Well, for me… my husband and I recently made the decision to homeschool our two daughters. And on top of it, we’re going to Waldorf homeschool them. Both styles of education come with their vocal critics (don’t they all, I guess?), but for a lot of reasons that I will eventually get into here, this is the journey our family is meant to be on at this moment. I feel as though we’re figuring out how to make our lives work for us… and we’re doing it in the midst of the crowd. Maybe not completely exactly with the perfect sweetness of the independence of solitude, but hey… we’re on the trail.

So that’s it for now. Baby steps into this blog. We’ll see where we go…

Night!