Mutual in Mutiny

This post is part of Think Kit by SmallBox, today’s prompt:”What completely surprised you this year? Was it good…or not so good? Tell us a story!”

There is so much snarkyness that came to mind when I saw this prompt that I had to walk away from the computer to process what direction I wanted to go with this.

(and I wrote a whole post and then decided to delete it as it was way aggressive for what I wanted)

What surprised me in 2013?

I learned that I had done a pretty good job secluding myself from June 2010-August 2013.  In the midst of the ongoing litigation that resulted from the fatal accident I was in back in 2010; I learned to lay pretty low as I healed myself physically and dealt with the repercussions of being a victim in an accident that had so many attorneys, conflicts and legal theory that it still makes my head spin.

But I was challenged back in August to realize just how much of a toll that living quietly and laying low had taken on my life.  I had more or less withdrawn without making an effort to meet new people doing new things, I had let myself get lazy and complacent when it came to being social and networking in the business world.

And, more or less, I was forced to snap out of it pretty suddenly…and that forced realization was pretty much the most eye opening experience of 2013–at least that I care to put in writing.

It was a surprise to realize how much I had let my seclusion impact both my personal and professional life.  It was easy to see how it happened in hindsight, but I had my head buried pretty deep in the sand until I was forced to look back.

I look at it a bit as being mutual in mutiny, I was in mutiny against the situation I was in and therefore not putting in the effort to get past it; simultaneously the situation was in mutiny against me since I wasn’t making any effort.  All without even realizing I was doing it, and I’m not _normally_ an oblivious person.

But the path has been corrected and I snapped out of that funk.  If I hadn’t been so taken back and surprised my the situation I had put myself in, I’m not sure I ever would have made the effort to change it.  I’m in a totally different place now than I was 4 months ago when I first made the discovery and in many ways, I’m so much better for it.

So my surprise for 2013 was, I had my head buried in the sand–but my accomplishment was that once I realized that I actively made changes to better the situation.

Plus I realized, if I really wanted to take over the world and kick some ass, I had to be part of the world versus hiding from it.

getting my magic back