Life has been moving really fast and slow at the same time. Lately, most of my time is spent just quietly observing my thoughts. I don’t get on social media as I used to and it feels like I’ve turned off for most things in life.
On paper, I sound detached and depressed, but the truth is I am so much more connected with myself and at peace…
How did I get here? Well, not too long ago I was running at full speed trying to catch up with life. All I wanted to do was check off all the boxes in life for what was considered successful for my age group, gender, race, and every other class I fall in in society. But the truth is, for every one of these, I felt behind and completely out of the loop. The ticking clock of life kept running and every time I heard it I ran a little faster in no particular direction…
Until I eventually crashed.
Laying on the floor, that I crashed onto I haven’t felt the urge to get back up. Or at least for the first time, I completely ignored the impulse to get up and run again. I decided to stay still for once. Here, I’m finally catching my breath and things are starting to calmly settle from the dizziness of running around in circles for so long.
“Is that what would make you happy? To make X amount of dollars, to be as successful as that influencer, to be married, to be first to do this or the youngest to do that? When you have all of that, will you finally be considered a normal human being by life’s standards? Will you finally be worthy?
I realized as much as these sound like they would make any person happy, none of them mean anything if I am not at first walking in my purpose.
Somehow, I believe it was necessary to fall to the ground in order to get away from all the noise. It was necessary to come back to a place of living life with meaning.
So I did something I’ve never done before…I stopped the clock!
I didn’t care if life was still moving fast around me; I hit the snooze button on reacting to it. I turned my focus inwardly and started doing some unconventional things.
Here’s what happened in my Time Out:
-I gave myself abundant grace. Grace to make mistakes without thinking it was the end of the world, but instead staying calm to see and learn the lesson
-I listened to my heart more
-Honored myself more
-I gave myself a pass to be different. If I am going to be out of the loop whether I try to fit in or not, I might as well stick to being myself.
-I learned that a lack of knowledge was an opportunity to learn in disguise. The same for failure; an opportunity to be better
-I gave myself time. As much as I needed to get where I am going at my own pace
-I reminded myself that God is in full control. He is looking out for me and He will never leave nor forsake me
-I let go of what was refusing to stay and detached myself from anything that takes me out of character(still working on this)
-I realized no one, no society, no clique, no timeline was worth pretending for. Pretending to be anything is something I now consider a dishonor to myself
-I learned that finding the right answers is more important than saying the right things; therefore, there are no stupid questions in life
-People and things are worth fighting for, but I draw the line at losing myself over it.
-I am prepared to live a life with purpose every day
-I learned to find the opportunity to grow in challenging times
I am following a wild dare to be true to myself no matter what. After all, what I am really doing here is putting “the consequences” of life on pause. For once, I am getting my hands dirty, saying no, saying goodbye, trusting, speaking up, leaping into the unknown, LIVING, and allowing mistakes like there was nothing to lose other than the opportunity to find myself. (In fact, I am now allowed to make a 100 mistakes every minute if I want)
The best part is I stopped racing life and finally gave myself an opportunity to grow. I set my heart on being better and promised myself that I would still accept myself wholly if by the time I found who I am, I was nothing like society considered the norm.