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| Balinese food truck. |
“Sightings on the Beach in Bali”
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| We wondered who’s claws, these could be. |
I used to be a perfectionist, a people pleaser and outrageously organized. Over these past four years I’ve come to grips with the fact that being a perfectionist is only useful when it comes to booking vacation homes, cruises and flights, to ensure we have the dates, times, pricing and circumstances done correctly.
Tom, who’s become more detail orientated than me, is my backup, as I am his when we make plans for the future: checking and rechecking to ensure we don’t encounter any trying situations at the airport, cruise check in or when arriving at a vacation home.
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| A grocery shop along the highway. |
Whew! That makes a huge difference in life. Living in the states fed into my need to do everything …the Martha Stewart syndrome …not the insider trader part (we trade on the outside), but the constant attempt to have everything perfect in our personal lives. No one can live up to that. Certainly, I didn’t.
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| Hand made decorative exterior wall hangings. |
Living this life with few expectations placed upon myself (it was always my own expectations, not anyone else’s) I feel free, unencumbered and ultimately content. The only alarms we have to set in our lives is for travel days; traveling by car, traveling by plane, cruising, etc. We both appreciate the sense of ease and freedom during the remaining days.
Tom spent his life in the US working for 42 years on the railroad, being ruled by the clock. Railroad timelines are unforgiving. My life’s work was equally demanding in meeting certain time limits and constraints.
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| Exterior of neighborhood home. |
Even as children, we had to catch the bus, get to school and make it to activities requiring that the clock ruled most of our day. That’s a lot of pressure for kids when growing up in itself is a huge responsibility, but, it best be learned in youth to prepare for the inevitable responsibilities of adulthood.
Sure, the two Katuks come here every morning around 8:00 am and clean our bedroom most days before 9:00 am. But, we’re up early anyway. There’s no stress associated with that. Even the walks each day don’t feel stressful when they’re so enjoyable with our encounters along the way.
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| Restaurant seating. |
Hmm… some may ask, “Does preparing this post every single morning 365 days a year cause stress?” None at all. When and if it does, I’d stop. This is post #1503. I’m still not tired of doing it, nor have I ever experienced “writer’s block” although on occasion I may stare at the ocean to think for a moment or two before I begin.
Recently, my injury has created an amount of stress. But that stress has motivated me to walk, maintain good posture, exercise in the pool and to sit and lay ergonomically. As the benefits of my efforts continue to become evident, the stress wafts away, leaving hope and optimism in its path.
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| Police department in small town outside of Denpasar. |
Life is complicated. No doubt there are people we love and desire to please. No doubt there are obligations and tasks we perform to illustrate that love. And without question, we have responsibilities including filing and paying taxes, preparing a plethora of documents from time to time, renewals of this and that, applying for visas, paying off credit card and overseeing and managing financial matters.
There’s no “free lunch.” Some people assume that “living off the grid” would be an ideal escape from the trials and tribulations of life, that growing and managing their food, livestock, water sources and power supply would be easy. It wouldn’t be. Therein lies an entire litany of new responsibilities and subsequent stresses that wouldn’t be as easy as one would think.
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| Exterior of a nearby home. |
This is evident in the lives of the locals we see with water wells in their yards as shown in yesterday’s main photo; chickens, pigs, cows and buffalo living in their yards as shown in many of our photos. Its not easy. Then again, what about making a living? How’s that done without some amount of stress?
Perfectionism is a stress inducer, but reducing that element of behavior doesn’t guarantee a life free from stress. Accepting stress as a normal part of life in itself reduces stress. Balancing the degrees of stress we experience in life to ensure we maintain good health, happiness and a quality of life in our longevity, is a little trickier.
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| Special building along the highway from Denpasar. |
I truly believe each and every one of us was placed upon this earth to find something meaningful to accomplish, a true stress reliever, whether it’s as simple as sharing a little piece of who we are as individuals, or as complicated as pursuing and executing a lifelong dream.
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| Two holiday dressed young women walking on the road. |
We’ve opted for a more complicated fulfillment of a dream neither of us ever knew we possessed until it happened. With that comes a certain amount of stress which we attempt to balance each day within our blissful surroundings and the companionship we share.
Perfectionism has no place in this life since moments ago, a giant flying thing landed on my mug and I brushed it off and kept drinking and, I trade off wearing the same two swimsuits day after day.
It’s all good. We hope you’re finding your life fulfilling as well.
Photo from one year ago today, September 10, 2015:
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| The captain made a safety speech before we took off for Savusavu, Fiji in this little plane. See here for more details. |