Is this your life?
How to be more honest with yourself about what you really want and need
I’m in a position right now where I’ve found myself with a lot of space and time around me. I have two part-time jobs in the leisure/hospitality industries, and a business involving an online shop that I’ve decided to close temporarily. This isn’t everyone’s experience right now and this won’t be a one-size-fits-all approach, but this is the process I’m going through right now that I wanted to share with you. Be kind to yourself, give yourself time and do whatever feels right for you.
It is time to allow yourself to be really honest about what you want from life. There’s no shortage of people telling you what you *should* want, what you *should* be striving towards, but if you don’t take the time to decide if that’s really what you do want, you might achieve everything you’ve ever dreamed of, and realise it’s not what you want at all.
All things exist in relation to everything else, our experiences and ourselves are full of contradictions - we do not sit on one side of the scale, we move up and down it, sometimes multiple times in a day. There’s no right or wrong, it’s all about finding the right recipe for us.
Calm vs. Chaos
Ask most people ‘do you want a calm life?’ and they’ll probably say yes. Do I want a calm life? Sure. I guess. But if my life was super calm and zen, full of yoga and brunch and early nights, I know I’d be bored. I know that I need some level of chaos to keep me excited and motivated. And in knowing myself like I do, I can predict that if given a totally calm life, I will crave chaos to the point that I will create it, likely too much, in a super non-fun self-destruction. When we restrict ourselves to the point that we aren’t having our needs met, we will (sometimes unconsciously) do what we can to meet those needs.
Then we have whole host of interpretations of individual experience - plenty of people experience yoga as a grounding experience, at their most calm, but there are also plenty of people who view it as the most anxiety-inducing, stressful experience. And all the possibilities in between. None are wrong, just our own interpretations of experience.
I’ve been trying to play close attention to the things I think I want, to understand if it is truly what I want, or just something that looks good on paper, or something I always assumed I’d want. And wanting one thing doesn’t mean the complete absence of another. Do I want to be able to cook and eat healthy nutritious food? Yes. Do I want to be able to enjoy pizza and donuts and cider and all that good nutrient-void food? Yes. Can I have both of those things present in my life? Sure, why not?! Similarly, I want to work and be successful and productive, but I also want to have fun and be silly. If I go out and get drunk three times a week, will that affect the things I’m able to achieve? Yeah, probably. I will be performing under my best for a big chunk of the week, I probably wouldn’t be able to do all of those things that I so want to do. But how about if I want to get drunk with my friends on a Tuesday night? Can I allow myself the time and space to do that, and let myself off the hook on a Wednesday morning? Sure, I can give myself that.
Productivity only works if you also have downtime, we only get to feel awake when we have been asleep, you get to create this life and fill it with all the things you want. You don’t have to be ‘on’ all the time, you don’t have to be one thing all the time, you are complex and contradictory. You’re nothing like anyone else and that’s the beauty of you.
If you’re interested in exploring this in more depth, below are some questions you could ask yourself. Think about them as you go about your day, journal them, come back to them in a few months time when everything has calmed down, whatever works for you.
Take care, stay safe and stay wild.
What things in your life right now bring you joy?
How would your ideal life make you feel?
Write down all the experiences that are important to you,(For example: family meals, your daily walk, pub on a Tuesday night) and then rate them 1-10 of importance.
The 9-10s will become your non-negotiables. Keep reminding yourself of these, because if you find yourself building a life that excludes them, you’ll know that you need to make some shifts.