Oh that Restless Plateau

Lately I feel like a number of areas in my life are plateauing.

I'm happily married and have a steady job. I don't have deadlines to meet or ever changing class schedules. I don't have the stress of the unknown that I had in college. I've settled in to life and everything is so calm and stable in comparison to where I was a year or two ago.

I'm positive that there are hundreds of people who would kill to be on this plateau.

Yet, I'm finding that I am a little restless. Not to be confused with feeling stuck or bored with where you are in life, this is something else entirely. I've found a lot of contentment on the plateau in comparision to the uncertainty that was before it. It's kind of nice here. No major turmoil or hardships. In fact, I really like simplicity.

It feels weird to feel restless when you're in a place in life where you have a lot of freedom and do a lot of exciting and meaningful things on a regular basis. And furthermore, I know there is so much ahead. So many milestones we've yet to reach...

The problem with plateaus is that everything around you looks the same. As exciting as it is to have so many possibilities laid out in front of you, you feel a lack of purpose with no mountain in front of you to scale or behind you to rest from. I guess you can only be content with the quiet so long before you are ready to tackle the next thing. It's that "bring in on life" attitude.

Is this good or bad? Is restlessness something we should be fighting? Or is it something that pushes us forward?

I have a tendency to believe that it can be just as damaging as beneficial and I'm trying to learn to balance restlessness to that "just right" amount. You know, that place where you don't settle and you push yourself to impact your world, but you don't use it as an excuse to be selfish or ignore the benefits of discipline.

I guess my restlessness comes from lack of direction. If I knew what we were working towards I could set out in that direction. But instead, we're in this deciding-what-direction-to-take place.

I feel like I'm standing at a crossroads, looking at a map with a million possibilities (all of which are just fine with me), waiting. That's right. I'm a six year old girl shifting her weight from foot to foot and making huffing noises waiting on her dad to tell her where we're going...