Do you believe that you can only grow or grow your “best” when you are in pain? When you have something to heal from. We’re so uncomfortable with being uncomfortable that we work our way through it. And maybe some of us also just don’t want to believe something could defeat us. Especially another person. Because that’s our choice, right? How intensely something hurts us? Anyways, (I'm pretty sure I just went off topic there.) Have you ever done self sabotage because you believed that you were no longer growing due to the comfort you were in? Almost as if life has become this ordinary experience because your mind isn’t constantly massaging out knots in your head. 

For me, adapting to a more relaxed state has made me feel like I lost who I am. Like I completely lost my sense of self. And to be honest, it sometimes just makes me feel old. No offense to anyone- I have nothing against growing old. Well, besides the smile lines currently forming in my face. But what I’m saying is that I feel like I’m losing part of my youth when I get comfortable in the mundane. Before the pandemic I always lived in the future. My purpose each day was to become one step closer to that thing that I’ll always be just one step away from because I didn’t ever live in the present. The pandemic changed that for me entirely. And probably most people. We no longer woke up to check off another box of something for our future. Instead, everything we did that day became just for that day. I previously wrote “we have lived our entire lives making decisions that will construct our future with only considering our present (the present feels temporary while the future feels permanent). this is the first time that we have to make decisions soley based on the present because the future is a blank canvas that we can’t even put a paint brush to with how much uncertainty there is around us.”

So yea, I’ve become more present. And because of that, I recognize the power in my current age. Your 20’s are a pivotal time period. And I know that because for the first time in my life I’ve looked back on younger years and thought ‘wow, I wish I knew what I was living in when I was living in it. Because that was a great time.’ And when I talk to the generation above me they hype up their 20’s just the same. And yea, maybe they were dealt the jackpot of living through the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s BUT, I believe them. Me personally? I don’t want to look back on my twenties and wish that I gave myself more or allowed myself to grow more. And it’s sick that I have become so conditioned to associate growth with pain. Because, these years can be dramatic, theatrical if you may, but they don’t have to be painful.

learning to accept love and joy as emotions that water us as well.