Rebuilding Rob

For the last few months, we’ve been seeing a lot of – what I call – recycled prompts here on WordPress. This isn’t a complaint. After all, it is not realistic to expect ANYONE to create more than 365 completely original prompts. Even over the course of a year, some topics are going to sound similar to others.

If you’ve been reading my blog for the last few months, you’ve seen that I’ll embed a previous response to the same prompt from roughly one year ago. Sometimes I do it’s just to “phone in” my response, as my thoughts are feelings on something are unchanged from last year to this year. Occasionally, I’ll embed last year’s response to show how my feelings have changed in the last 12 months. Once every few months, I stumble across a new-to-me prompt, as I did 2 days ago. This motivates me to continue blogging. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to stop blogging. I’ve been posting at least every day for over a year, and I intend to keep it that way.

At what point does stability become stagnation? 

At the risk of going all meta cognitive, I started thinking today about the fact that some things in my life are basically the same as they were last year. I was preparing a response a daily prompt when I realized that I’m living in the same place that I was last year. Stability is good, of course; but at what point does stability turn into stagnation?

I guess the simple answer to this would be stability becomes stagnation as soon as one is no longer experiencing growth.

Am I still experiencing growth?

This is the next question I find myself coming back to. For this answer, I have to look back over the last year and see where I was 12 months ago. In order to see what I’ve accomplished in the last 12 months, I need to looks back at post like Lessons I’ve learned -2024 edition. But to see what I my goals were for the year, and how I did on achieving those goals, I have to compare My blueprint for 20204 with the revisit of my blueprint for 2024

Gratuitous hyperlinks aside, I do think I experienced some growth in the last 12 months. I was able to do so, and that was relatively comfortable and very stable. I think if I remain still for too long however, I run the risk of becoming stagnant and allowing myself to become TOO comfortable. As I said, in other recent posts, I will be thinking out my “blueprint for 2025“ over the next few days.

Things to come

Given what’s about to take place in the next eight months or so, namely, Kid 1 starting college I think that I’m in a good place to take care of certain financial obligations so that I can help Kid 1 financially – certainly more than I’ve ever had to – in the coming year.

Of course, this is going to take anything away from kid 2’s accomplishments of the coming year. but the fact remains that kid one will be graduating from high school this May. He will be starting college this coming fall. Those things are inevitable.

Right now, I don’t even know what mother’s health situation will look like in the next year. I don’t wanna sound incredibly morbid and say things like a “well, someone in my family who is really old and is really sick of going to eventually pass “but it is a reality. She’s not getting any younger, and her physical health seems to be picking up speed. I know all too well – from The Old Man’s passing – just how the death of a parent affects a person. And like a Kid 1 graduating and going to college, death is inevitable.

I am comfortable right now, and content. Maybe more content than I’ve been in a very long time. Notice that I say content and not “happy“. I’ve been in situations around this time of year, where I feel like I’m as giddy as a school girl; yet I’m not truly content. Like kid one is currently going through, there are times were I found myself in the honeymoon phase of a relationship. Or I am happily loving the newness of a life-changing situation. I’m not feeling any of that giddiness now. That’s a good thing.

Kid 2 thinks of my home as also “home”. I know too many children in divorced families who think of things as “home” (their mom’s home”. And “Dad’s house”. This level of comfort is hard to come by for a child of divorce. It is something I’ve tried to create for Kid 2 over the last 4 years. I’m not ready to uproot him yet.

All we can do is the same thing we ever do with any of our “undiscovered countries”: hope for the best embrace ourselves for the worst.

Thanks for stopping by Rebuilding Rob. Be sure to like, comment and subscribe to my blog below. It’s greatly appreciated! Also, feel free to follow me on social media as well! Check out my most recent posts as well as some earlier, related posts:

• Acknowledge Me: The Simple Art of Being Seen
• Rob’s Retro Movie Review: This is Spinal Tap (1984) – The Movie That Scaled to Eleven
• A Death in the Family (And My Disposable Income): My Life in Comics
• The Supporting Cast: Navigating the Eras of Male Friendship
• Life is What Happens: A Look Back at My Non-Existent 2025 Vision

The article “stability or stagnation?“ First appeared on Rebuilding Rob.