An intriguing message has been making its way into my space lately. It started several months ago with a piece in an intoxicating book of inspiration by yung pueblo and has since continued, as persistent messages from the universe are wont to do.
It boils down to this: in this world of continual busy-ness, it’s easy to get caught in a whirlpool of superficial interactions that have the illusion of being valuable but that, in reality, leave us knowing no more of ourselves or the path we want to take than we did in the moments before.
(Perhaps that needed to reduce a bit more.)
This is not to say everything we do needs to serve the purpose of growth, only to suggest there could be more intentional method added to balance out the madness. After all, one could argue there needs to be a certain amount of frivolity in order for us to recognize enlightenment, should it grace our path. It is the law of opposites. You can’t feel joy if you don’t know pain. You can’t feel belonging if you don’t know alone.
It’s funny how the more people there are involved, the more adrift one can feel. The level of potential connection gets diluted like a saline solution under an open tap. This may feel more true for us socially-trained introverts than the extroverts of the world, though I’m not one to speak on behalf of the latter. I am among those who enjoy quiet contemplation and anthropologic observation but who have learned that sitting in the corner staring at people comes across as creepy, so now we smile and play along.
The original quote that started all this:
“i am making more time for the
people who make me want me to
be the best version of myself”
The challenge here is back-ended. The vision for Best Version of Self (BVOS) must come first. Does it mean spending time with people whose energy you envy and want to emulate, regardless of how incongruous it is to who you currently are? Or does it mean finding people whose comfort-in-self leads you to feel more accepting of your own skin, allowing you to see what you once thought were flaws as necessary pieces of your intricate puzzle.
At first, I read it as door number one, believing my BVOS couldn’t possibly be a corner-dwelling ruminator who gets jazzed about Descartes' dream hypothesis and the idea that time is irrelevent. These are hardly enlivening topics to explore over six-dollar cortados. I thought, I used to be a lot more fun than this. Mind you, I also used to drink.
My interpretation of pueblo’s words started to shift. Maybe my BVOS is already actualized. It is already me in whatever moment I’m in. Even in this one right now, trying to decide what words will come next. It’s not that we need to spend time with people who make us want to be Different or Better, rather that we need to make time for people who make us want to celebrate, explore, and even enjoy being ourselves.
This all came to a head for me a week or so ago as I was listening to a recent episode of Straight and Curly, one of my favourite podcasts. Carly and Kelly speak every week—with their amazing Australian accents and hilarious slang—about self-improvement and productivity. Episode 130 boasted a topic near and dear to my heart: six steps towards getting out of your own way. (I had even asked my therapist about this in the week prior, wondering if she could unpack the psychology behind self-sabotage. Turns out our brains are lazy and willpower is a fickle jerk.)
Step number five brought this all back to life after months of it swirling around in my head. Pueblo’s words, simplified.
“Surround yourself with the right people.”
By this, they meant if you are a budding entrepreneur, spend time with other entrepreneurs. If you want to be more fit, spend time with people who make fitness a priority. If you want to be a writer, spend time with other writers.
And that’s where I found the humour of it all. I know other writers. I would say, removing writing from the running, our top collective skill is avoiding each other’s company. We romanticize the idea of spending time together, we even talk about it and make conceptual plans. Rarely, do we follow through. At least, that’s been my experience.
Slowly, a conclusion started to emerge. I’ve spent the last couple of months filling my schedule with appointments and workouts and dog walks and reconnections. These are all things I either need or want to do, but the pace has been relentless. It’s been a full-blown hustle, with time for everyone and everything, except me.
And isn’t that just the Life of Pi moment. I wasn’t supposed to be making time for certain people or different people or trying to force reclusive people out of their caves. I was supposed to be making time for me. Sonova beach.
I don’t know how to clear a calendar when everything on it seems important. I don’t know how to make Christmas less daunting or find time to get the carpets cleaned for the first time in a decade. I’ve had “oil change” on my list of things to do for the past three months and, when I finally booked it, I had to call two days later to reschedule.
But today, somehow, I accepted an opportunity to breathe, ironically, made possible by a continually canceled coffee date with another corner-dwelling introvert who also makes her living hocking words.