{"id":2053,"date":"2011-10-07T12:01:15","date_gmt":"2011-10-07T16:01:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/?p=2053"},"modified":"2011-08-27T21:46:48","modified_gmt":"2011-08-28T01:46:48","slug":"class-reunion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/2011\/10\/class-reunion.html","title":{"rendered":"Class Reunion"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I was invited to a school reunion and thought it would be fun to attend. High school was a happy time for me. I had loads of friends and was involved in many activities. So I went and it was fun to see so many people I\u2019d been friends with back then. My best high school friends were there. I got excited about reuniting with them and some others I really liked but lost touch with. Yet I left with no phone numbers or promises to connect. Sadly, there was no one I wanted to see after.<\/p>\n

Going to the reunion made me realize how far I\u2019ve come in my growth. Most of my former classmates were still stuck in a version of DoorMatville, doing what they\u2019re \u201csupposed to,\u201d plodding along through life instead of passionately living like I am. All night long I heard oooo\u2019s and ahh\u2019s about my career. I didn\u2019t talk to one person who enjoyed what they did. They said life was okay, but that was it. Almost everyone had gravitated into careers they were told were appropriate, like I did when I became a teacher against my desires. And only I had broken out.<\/p>\n

Touching bases with your past can teach you about your present.<\/p>\n

Have you grown a lot over the years or are you still stuck? It\u2019s always nice to have reminders of your progress. As you move forward, change can be very slow, and you might not recognize much from day to day. But when you see people you haven\u2019t seen in ages or look back on who you were years ago, the changes can become more obvious. I didn\u2019t need all the admiration to know how far I\u2019ve come. All I needed was to talk to people I grew up with to understand the strides I\u2019ve made.<\/p>\n

They were all in a much less happy place than me, not bad, just not really good. Most had been pushed into traditional careers like teaching and were still there. They settled for their lives, living with spouses they didn\u2019t have much to do with and just passing time instead of really living. One of my two closest friends seemed almost matronly, which blew me away since she used to wear very short skirts and attract guys like a magnet. She was HOT years ago. Now she was dowdy. Marriage settled her into a very boring woman.<\/p>\n

My other close friend was bitter about her life. Her parents brought her up to believe she needed to marry a doctor. So she went on a mission to \u201chook\u201d one. She pleased her parents but her marriage was fraught with drama until she finally left. Now she\u2019s bitter about wasting her youth on him and feels like it\u2019s over for her. Most of my old friends felt like they were where they should be and should stay. But I didn\u2019t hear any enthusiasm. Except from me!<\/p>\n

Loving what you do creates so many positive emotions, and I truly love what I do!<\/p>\n

That night I felt admiration, amazement that I was able to reinvent myself, and envy. I left feeling bittersweet. It was fun to see everyone again after so many years. But I had no desire to stay in touch with anyone. NONE! That made me a little sad. I saw people who were former cheerleaders, dancers, party girls and guys, smart, creative, etc., who were settled into unstimulating ruts. It made me appreciate my life even more and how blessed I am to be out of DoorMatville for good.<\/p>\n

Look back on your life. Are you in a rut that isn\u2019t satisfying? Look for ways to change that. You only have one life. Why not make it the best it can be? I continue to look for new challenges and opportunities to enhance my life. I won\u2019t stop until God takes me from this earth. You owe it to yourself to create a life you enjoy.
\n***************<\/p>\n

Take the self-love challenge<\/strong><\/a> and get my book, How Do I Love Me? Let Me Count the Ways<\/a><\/strong> for free at http:\/\/howdoiloveme.com<\/a>. And you can post your loving acts HERE<\/a><\/strong> to reinforce your intention to love yourself. Read my 31 Days of Self-Love Posts HERE<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Please leave comments under my posts so we can stay connected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was invited to a school reunion and thought it would be fun to attend. High school was a happy time for me. I had loads of friends and was involved in many activities. So I went and it was fun to see so many people I\u2019d been friends with back then. 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Let Me Count the Ways, a She's appeared on hundreds of TV and radio shows, including Oprah, Howard Stern, and Good Morning America and has been quoted in dozens of publications, including the New York Times, Chicago Sun-Times, Cosmopolitan, Redbook, Marie Claire, and Men\u00b9s Health. After being a consummate People Pleaser who felt unworthy of getting her own needs met for many years, Daylle found a path of self-love that enabled her to build her self-esteem and reinvent herself into a dual career. She learned to get taken seriously without being overtly assertive when she became one of the first women to start an independent record label (on a dare!) and learned to play ball nicely and successfully in an industry dominated by men. To help independent musicians empower themselves, Daylle writes music business books for Billboard\/Random House, including the very popular Start & Run Your Own Record Labe and I Don't Need a Record Deal! Daylle's books have been translated into over 10 languages and are popular around the world. She speaks for colleges, organizations and corporations. Through her company, Project Self-Empowerment, Daylle creates programs and materials to help people empower themselves. One goal is to raise the money to self-publish her book, How Do I Love Me? Let Me Count the Ways and give it away for free in colleges and through organizations, to give thanks for all her blessings. Daylle uses her writing and speaking to help others find the kind of contentment and empowerment that she has.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/author\/dschwartz"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2053"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2072,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2053\/revisions\/2072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}