People have ~8.3 billion different perspectives. I don’t know how to best share mine.
If I were a better person I’d delete Instagram, Threads, block YouTube, throw my Apple products out the window and onto the street… I rely on these platforms and technologies, and why does this make me feel guilty? A job in an office at a 9 to 5 feels more dutiful, not that it prevents me from needing use of these things - “because I make a relatively low but regular pay with benefits, and although all of this money I’m helping to earn is going directly to someone else…” I feel like a Good Girl™️ when I simply adhere to those standards. It may not feel natural to the human spirit, but we are all playing a similar game of survival and we all need to maintain a semblance of order to function properly, as a society. I rely on our systems: cars and traffic laws, taxes and banks, basic capitalism… I cannot hate a part of everyday life; and in fact, I like to do them well—it is fun to do things well.
BUT AFTER many many many many many many many jobs to understand what works and what doesn’t, because I never truly had a clear idea of what career I was so blindly and feverishly pursuing, I’m at a place where I’m sort of remaining above water as is? And then these blessing-type-things happen that I’m afraid to digest because I don’t want to jinx anything, and aren’t we familiar with the Tao? This is not a season for celebrating perceived wins — this is a season for keeping my head down, planting seeds, and building.
I know what I want.
In some ways, I’m happy in this season of life. I am becoming more of myself—which does scare me. I am so used to not being myself that being 100% authentic feels like the end of the world, to put it both dramatically and deliberately. Being 75% myself is better, because then I can allow space for others to co-create with—I cannot control how you view me; why don’t I allow for some softness as an opportunity to learn. I catch myself with buggers of attitudes, too, for no apparent reason, but when I dig deeper, it’s because I feel unloved. (Is this too straight?) We know: drink water, exercise, don’t spend more than you earn, try not to shit-talk folks (and regrettably, with age I am learning that this also means to their face - no one wants their blind spots for personal and shared growth purposes, or to ease the emotional ailments of an assumed friend.)
I’m 33 years old. Have a lifetime of complicated traumas that run deep. They are not healed. I am not perfect. And I’m doing my best to sit here with you and connect.
I hope you are enjoying your day, and I hope this brings you a sense of… something.