I started writing this in 2016 and just left it as a draft. Maybe I was afraid to publish it. I still struggle with some of these very things today. It is nice to have this to come back and read and reflect. It’s left me wondering, how much have I grown…
It’s amazing how God will put people in your life to put things in perspective. People often use the phrase, “things could be worse,” or they look at the misfortunes in another’s life in comparison to their own and realize how fortunate they are. This truly can’t be the right way to look at things. When you’re drowning in sorrow, wallowing in your own self-misery, you shouldn’t look at dying and starving children and be thankful for how blessed you are. This is often what I believe people do to make themselves feel better when their problems seem overwhelming, almost insurmountable.
Lately, things haven’t been the best. However, I didn’t find solace in considering how things could be worse and for a while now, I have been coming increasingly aware of how I compare myself to others. I monitor it in every context. It is so natural that it takes a conscious effort to stop. My stress recently has been showing on my face, in my body, and in my actions. It has personified itself. I have never been good at hiding my issues. Once I realized that I was an honest and open person, I embraced it, perhaps a little too fully.
I feel that my endless self-expression of stress is receiving some of the responses I have been secretly begging for. I keep asking God to show me a sign. What direction should I be going in? What steps should I be taking? Am I doing enough? Am I doing too much? Should I be spending this time indulging in self-care? And after a month of thinking, stressing, crying, being consumed by depression, and fighting the urge to drink myself to sleep, I am accepting the serenity of my situation. Not because of any supreme effort of my own, but because of the conversations I have had with others.
I have complained to a LOT of older people. Trying to express myself, release, and get them to understand where I am coming from. Typically they do; but when you’re 30 and older, you find yourself wishing you had 25-year-old problems. What I am seeing now is that I have been crying, stressing, and depressed over a situation that could truly, truly be much more difficult. Certainly, it’s difficult to me, but not insurmountable. It’s not as life-altering as a sick child, or being a young struggling mother of two. I have met people on a daily basis who deal with a lot more problems than I do, yet still find a reason to smile, and work every day. Can I honestly say that I am chasing something more and they have just accepted their lives for what they are? That would be snobby of me; self-absorbed. To assume that my dreams, life, and problems, deserve tears, and theirs don’t.
What I need most now is patience, and time. I need to develop my patience, and I need to embrace time for what is at this very moment, right now. I can’t recall when my patience became so thin. Maybe it was the rush of adrenaline after graduation, or maybe it was the ending of my last relationship; something that drained me of my energy and my ability to tolerate long-term bullshit. However, not having patience is not going to benefit me now or ever.
You need patience, to embrace the movement of time. The days and years will come and go, but you need to be able to embrace the movement of time within your own life and journey. Having to realize that the progress I make today, has no connection to the progress I may make tomorrow, was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do. I should be working day by day, challenging myself, planning, and growing. But I can’t expect to be seeing the results of the future today. I can’t expect to have the job, house, and car of my dreams now because I achieved one thing. Although that sounds reasonable and logical, it is impossible to do day to day sometimes. When your day to day looks so bleak and you constantly dream about the future, it is easy to worry and stress. You just want to escape into your future self, your future life, without going through the journey. I have learned that this is literally impossible.
I’m treating 25 like its 30. Like I should have arrived at a place that’s not meant for me yet. The perspective I have now is not going to be the perspective I have five years from now when I look back on these struggles that I thought were insurmountable. I have managed to turn this information into seeds of self-doubt; a voice within me attempting to convince me that I don’t deserve the things I actually want and the problems that come with it because I can’t handle what I have now. I have to see the fallacy in this. If I want so much and am so ambitious, how could these things not be mine? If this is what I am working towards, it will come anyway.
Things will arise whether I seek them or not; whether I ask for them or not. I should be patient with myself and with my journey and put in the work necessary during this time. It is the only way to have true growth.