Curating My Life - A Change In Perspective

Yesterday I wrote, "Living with chronic migraines and fibromyalgia has forced me to edit my life", as part of a post about the Super Bowl. The phrase, edit my life, reminded me of design. Editing is very important no matter what kind of design you are talking about it. We need to edit what pictures get displayed, what accessories we wear, what clothes we put in our wardrobe, what we put on our shelves, what goes in our garden, etc.

My point is, I totally get editing in the context of design and as soon as I framed my activities the same way, my perspective changed. Normally I think about the things I can't do, or how I need to modify the way I do other things, or how much my activity level has changed - you get the idea.

By simply saying the word edit I started hearing the word curate, a word with clout, prestige and class. Suddenly it wasn't about what I couldn't do but about being very selective about the things I allow myself to participate in - as if I was a museum or a or a fabulous interior space.

The things that make the cut are the things that are most important to me. I can't be everything to everyone. I can't even be everything I want to be. But, and this is very, very important, I can be great at what I am if I curate my life properly. Perhaps by purposely designing my life I can better manage all the crap. If nothing else, I bet the change in perspective will help me cope.

I sort of feel like this revelation requires that I try to develop a mission statement of sorts for myself to help me focus. Hmmm. I'll have to think about this one.