Optimization

I have recently been up to my eyeballs in optimization. SEO, or search engine optimization, is making your website more likely to show up in search results and is a calculated guessing game of trying to get your site to pop into the search engine’s algorithms. I am currently managing six, soon to be eight, websites plus my own. For someone trying to make a business grow SEO is important, showing up when people look for you is important in the virtual world. In planning and setting your SEO online you have to plant keywords to show up in search engines, label photos, and have certain aspects of your website have the right words more than others. All this talk of ‘optimal’ wording got me thinking about what optimal truly looks like in life.

Is there an optimal way of living? Is optimal the same for everyone? Is there a standard optimal? If there is an optimal way of living or a standard, then who sets it?

Simply looked at optimal is the most desirable or satisfactory. Optimal growing conditions. Optimal viewing experience. These make sense. Optimal life? I don't think there is a set standard. Optimal for me will be different for you, yet I think most of us still try and reach an 'optimal' life. I think that society has tried to set what an optimal life looks like. The ‘American dream’ of a house, a wife, two kids and a yard to play was once optimal. Now life has evolved, or our thinking has, and there are many optimal living situations. For us personally our most desirable home changes based on family size and location. The only true optimal home is one that comes in under BAH (housing allowance).

Parenting, especially mothering, likes to try and guilt you into being an optimal mother. A good mother stays home. Breast is best. The mommy wars are real and the guilt that people place on mothers, the guilt mothers place on themselves trying to compare themselves to others and being an ‘optimal’ parent is just plain ridiculous. And we’ve all felt it, when the truth is there is no parenting style or mothering type that is most desirable, except for a mother or parent who loves their child.

Many of today’s ‘resources’ try to tell you what you need to step up your game, be the optimal person/parent/homemaker that you are. Blogs, Facebook posts and the ultimate throw it in your face resource, Pinterest. If you’re a good mom you'll make an organic homemade breakfast for your little ones every day. Your house should be decorated to a theme, but not overly so and have some eclectic flair added in. You should always have a clean home, here is a trick to keep your baseboards clean. When in reality the most optimal home? One that will keep you dry, safe and with those you choose to share your home with.

Before I go off onto a tangent about Pinterest….that’s another blog post….. I think that the best you can do in order to have an optimal life experience is to live life YOUR way. Be true to yourself, walk your path. If it feels right to you then it is right for you. For me an optimal life is genuine, living true to myself, embracing the ups and downs, highs and lows. Optimal parenting for me is living true to my crunchy ways and having a supportive partner along the way. Optimal marriage is experiencing our life together. Optimal blogging is growing and developing. I will continue to have the most satisfactory, favorable, optimal journey in life because that is the way I choose to view my life path.