“Don’t Count Your Calories”

“Don’t count your calories!” is a phrase I’ve heard throughout my whole life, as I am sure you all have too.

People say this because counting calories tends to put food in negative light. If you count calories the more anxious and unhappy you’ll be throughout your meal. — it makes sense to me (that’s why I don’t do it!)

— but I want to take that message and turn it into a different perspective.

If we are all on the same page about not counting calories, because we need food to live, why can’t we have the same outlook on not counting mistakes, because we need those to learn.

Over the past several months I have started to count up the things in life I consider mistakes. I have blamed myself for things that are out of my control, and have been living in fear of my own mind, wondering what else I could possibly mess up.

I think we “over thinkers” tend to do this a lot. We count our mistakes and use them as a reason to blame ourselves for the way our lives have turned out.

— and I know I personally see my mistakes as anything other than learning experiences. I see them as reasons for God to be mad at me. Reasons for people to walk away.

I have made a lot of mistakes in my twenty years. Some I’ve learned from, some I’m still trying to understand. — and when I look at other people and what they consider mistakes, I don’t place blame. I don’t see them in a negative light, or think they are awful human beings. I see them as people just trying to do the best they can.

If you are also one of these people, I want you to ask yourself why we give everyone else the benefit of the doubt, but count our own mistakes up as if we aren’t allowed to make them.

I am a human being. I will continue to mess up. I am allowed to, even when I don’t want to.

You are a human too, you are a living breathing beautiful thing that gets another day to learn.

All we are is people doing the best we can, yet we have found no peace in letting ourselves be human. Letting ourselves fail. Letting ourselves figure it out.

I want you to find peace. I pray for it. I pray you let yourself figure it out. I pray you don’t run from what you are scared of, and you face it instead.

I know I am going to continue to mess up, I know you are too — but if no ones told you, I want to tell you that it’s OKAY. That you deserve time to figure it out. That you have time to fail, and with that, time to get back up and try again.

Mistakes have no time limit. They have no age limit. I think as we grow we expect life to get easier, to make more sense, and to "get better" at it, but that's not always the case. This is the first life we all have. Whether you are a parent, a grandparent, or 20 some year old kid..... this is your first life. -- and you aren't supposed to have it all figured out. You are never too old to learn and grow and better yourself.

I don’t have life figured out, I don’t know what I am even doing in my life right now, but I owe it to myself to find out.

So don’t count your mistakes, because that paints life as something negative, you as something negative. It makes you think that there is something wrong with you, and I promise you there isn’t.

Find the people who make you feel whole. Do the things that make you feel alive. — And do not only allow yourself mistakes, but forgive yourself for them.

Mistakes aren’t from ill intent most of the time. You aren’t an awful person. You are living and you are learning. — and I cannot wait until we find beauty in being human, in being exactly who we are.

No need to apologize for trying to live the best you can. I do not fault you.

Love always,

R