Bloganuary Day Three

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What’s your dream job?

If you’d have asked me this question ten years ago, the answer would have come easily: author. My dream from the time I was a child had always been to write books. I wrote a lot in my younger years, and especially in my teens. I rarely finished things, but I had the drive to write all the time.

Nowadays, I don’t write much beyond journaling and blogging. For the past few years I’ve questioned if I even want to write books anymore. I wonder if I’m simply holding onto the dream because letting it go feels like a failure. But the drive is just not there. I don’t seem to want it enough anymore to put any work out into trying. And that’s okay.

But that leaves the question of what is my dream job? Honestly, I have no idea. I’m currently trying to figure out what things I want to spend my time doing. What areas do I want to explore? What things do I want to try?

I do love history. And art. And books of course. It would be a dream to have a career in these areas. I don’t know what I would specifically want to do, but it’s something worth thinking about.

Bloganuary Day Two

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Bloganuary writing prompt
What books do you want to read?
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I love books, and I tend to read a variety of genres. However, looking back on what I’ve read the past few years, there really aren’t many books that stand out to me (and that saddens me). So I’ve been examining my reading life and figuring out what it is I want to gain from books, and what types of books I would like to read that I don’t.

So while there are specific books I’d like to read, especially classics (Jane Eyre, North&South, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, just to name a few) and some historical fiction, I’ve realized that what I’d really like is to explore more of my interests, mainly my love of fashion history. I want to read more books about the history of fashion. I especially love the fashion of the 20th century.

I have a dream of owning a collection of fashion history books. I want to be well-read and knowledgeable in this area. Right now I’m reading a book titled Jane Austen’s Wardrobe by Hilary Davidson. I’m really enjoying it and considering buying it for myself.

If you have any recommendations for me I’d love to hear from you.

Bloganuary Day One

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Back in December I’d decided to make January a month of daily blogging through prompts to help get myself back into the swing of writing. Here it the 4th of January and I’ve only just written this one. But it’s never too late to start. I don’t know if I will manage daily blogging, but I’m going to at least try. So here is day one:

Daily writing prompt
If you could make your pet understand one thing, what would it be?
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Oh, my sweet, lovable little Max. If I could make you understand one thing it would be this: you don’t have to be afraid of thunder, fireworks, or the sound of rain for that matter. I know it sounds scary. And having no clue of what any of those sounds are is stressful I’m sure.

Believe me, I was TERRIFIED of fireworks as a child. Fourth of July? I cried. I get it. But that distant rumble is not some giant beast terrorizing the town. Those fireworks, while they may sound like distant bombs, are actually very beautiful and fun to watch.

I wish I could make you understand that you are safe. You are safe and loved, and you really don’t need to tear up my hamper. Again.

Comparison is the Killer of Dreams

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Lately I’ve been comparing myself to people I’ve never met. People I don’t even know. I get in my head about it, wondering how I compare.

This way of thinking – this game of comparison – benefits no one, especially myself.

These thoughts clutter my mind, keeping me from going after my dreams. I have many dreams, but one small dream is the most important to me right now. It’s one I’ve had for a long time – and now I’m living it. However, I’m letting comparisons get in the way. My dream seems to stretch beyond my reach when my insecurity takes over. I’m letting thoughts of other people control how I feel about myself. I’m allowing myself to shrink because I’m afraid that I’ll never measure up. That I’ll never be good enough.

But the thing is, in a world of this many people, there are bound to be people better at even things that I do well. Should that keep me from my dream?

We all have a place in this world. We all deserve to take up space and go after what we want. When we let the accomplishments and good qualities of other people dictate how we feel about ourselves, well, that’s just devastating.

Letting comparison strip us of our courage to be open, to connect, to be unflinching in our pursuit of what matters to us, that is when we let comparison kill our dreams. It does not matter if someone is better, smarter, prettier, kinder, more outgoing, funnier, or any other ‘fill in the blank’. We all still deserve to take up space and to live the life we want.

Cultivating a Quiet Life

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A life does not have to look spectacular for it to be worth living. A life does not have to be exciting, instagram-worthy, loud, chaotic, rich, or brimming with adventure for it to be full and well-lived.

A simple existence, while perhaps slow and boring at times, is quietly beautiful. To be at peace with yourself, your surroundings, and to feel assured of your place within the world is, I think, a nice way to be.

Such a life seems worth sacrificing for. We live within a framework of constant wanting. Of constantly being pulled in by new and shiny things. More and more. Always more.

How about instead we let ourselves feel pulled by the quiet? How would such a life look? Is such a life worth cultivating? And that not is to say a simple and quiet life is an easy life. The fact is that life is never easy. I think it’s more of a question of what kind of life helps you live?

Life as a Zombie

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Life can be a bit much, don’t you think?

It can be so overwhelming just getting through the day to day. It’s no wonder so many of us turn to mindless entertainment to numb ourselves. My biggest distraction lately has been Youtube. I have racked up and embarrassing number of hours mindlessly consuming video after video. It’s so much easier than, say, reading a book. No, reading a book takes far too much focus. But watching someone talk about reading books requires my time and not much else. I do not need to focus. I do not need to think. I can just consume and consume until I’m ready for sleep (did I just unintentionally write a poem??).

Though this is all (mostly) harmless fun, it is not without its cost. What I’ve found when I enter these phases of mentally checking out is that I:

  1. Lose my ability to focus and
  2. Lose all intention in how I live my life and interact with people.

In other words, I am on autopilot. I lose touch with my values, and I lose sight of how I want my life to be. I go from living a life to simply existing.

And existing as a shell of myself is not a nice feeling.

Even though I keep telling myself that maybe it would be beneficial to get out of this cycle of mindless youtube watching, I can’t seem to stop. Once I’m stuck in a habit it can become really hard to get out of it. I’ve ‘tapped out’ of life. Watching a movie or TV show even feels like too much mental energy at this point, which sounds ridiculous.

Watching Youtube is not the problem here. It is my lack of intention. I am letting it take over my free time. What about my goals? What about the things I want to learn and do? I don’t want to live a life where all I do is watch videos – or do I? With the way I spend my time, perhaps one could argue that this is actually how I want to spend my time. It’s what I keep choosing to do, right? But I know what it is I truly want to do with my time. I have a vision for my life – and it does not include hours of watching book videos after work and on weekends. No, I have my values and I know this obsession is distracting from them.

This is what happens when I lose sight of what I want. When I stop putting intention behind my decisions. When I start to feel overwhelmed, it’s much easier to zone out than to face all of the things I need to do, all the things I want to do, and all the decisions I need to make. But I’ve been off track long enough. I think it’s time I start finding my way back.

What If We Really Do Deserve Our Dreams?

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Reader,

Do you believe you deserve good things? Do you believe that you deserve to make your dreams a reality? I truly hope you do, but I also entirely understand if you don’t.

I don’t know why so many of us struggle to see ourselves as we truly are. Though, I guess when we think negatively of ourselves, or when we have a hard time accepting compliments, we think we are seeing our true selves – we are our own worst enemies after all. Perhaps our expectations for ourselves are so high that we are blinded by it and can’t see how decent we actually are.

Why can it sometimes be so difficult to accept a good thing about ourselves? I think most of us want to be good people. We want to be kind and helpful. Just because we sometimes fail at being kind, helpful, or understanding does not just automatically make us bad people. Showing anger or disgust does not mean you don’t deserve good things.

I know it’s much easier to identify the parts of ourselves we don’t like. And more so, it is so easy to inflate those parts of ourselves that we criticize. All it takes is one thing that makes you feel ashamed, and suddenly that becomes your whole identity. All the wonderful parts of yourself seem to vanish, and you feel like scum.

And even with practice and positive affirmations, yoga and meditation, journaling, etc., I don’t know if those self-judgements can ever go away. I think we can work on believing in and accepting those good things about ourselves. I think we can work on changing our perspectives about who we truly are. I think we can always continue to strive to be who we wish to be. But I think we will probably always have those dark moments where we punish ourselves for something we did, said, or felt.

However, despite the inevitable downfalls, there is still room for self-acceptance and self-compassion. There is still room to believe that we deserve our dreams. We will have bad days and bad moments when we are angry at others or ourselves. We might feel guilt for that anger, but we just need to accept these feelings and move on. Having the core belief that we are deserving is a powerful thing.

Minimalism Is About More Than Just the Stuff

Published on by Danielle1 Comment

As a child, I dreamed of living in a big house and driving a Corvette. Looking back, I now find my Corvette dream to be baffling. I find it funny that I had a dream car when I do not care about cars at all. Like, at all.

As I grew older and social media began to blossom, I found myself desiring make-up collections and skincare products (I was very into the beauty Youtube community). This again strikes me as funny because I’ve never particularly been into make-up. I’ve always had a mild interest in beauty, but it’s never been something I wanted to dedicate much time to.

As humans, I think we so easily fall into the trap of desiring what we view as desirable by other people. We want to fit in. Perhaps be admired. We want to be like people that we think are better than ourselves. As a young 20-something, I know I was very much trapped in this cycle. I saw people living lives that I thought were better than mine – beautiful women who seemed to have their lives together. A good first step to be like them was to like what they liked. And so began my habit of buying make-up and beauty products.

Luckily however, my make-up interest did not go too far. I did not collect much in the way of beauty products. No, my true kryptonite came when I discovered the booktube community.

I was suddenly introduced to a whole new world of books. So many book recommendations and hauls, and just so many books on shelves. Seeing all of these enormous, beautiful collections in people’s videos had me desiring a huge book collection of my own. As a book lover, it seemed to only make sense to want a personal library in my bedroom.

Fast forward a few years and I had accomplished my dream. I had an ever-growing book collection that I thought was filling me with joy. I was buying so many books I saw featured in videos. If a book had a beautiful cover, chances are I ordered it for my collection. Even after I began working in a library, I still continued buying, buying, buying.

Now, I’m not saying this was good or bad. This is simply what I was doing. However, amidst all of this purchasing I wasn’t reading much. Here I was surrounded by books, yet I could easily go months without feeling compelled to read any of them. And that bothered me. Slowly I began to realize that perhaps owning all of these books was actually a source of stress and not a source of joy. Perhaps something that other people love having is not something I truly desired.

My books had become a burden. I felt obligated to read what I owned even if I had lost interest. Getting rid of books didn’t feel like an option – this whole book collection was what I was supposed to want, right? It’s also true that my book collection felt like an extension of myself. I identified as a reader and book lover, so I had the books to prove it. Getting rid of them meant getting rid of a part of myself.

So that is the place I was stuck in when I finally discovered The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. From what I can remember, this book is where I really began my minimalism journey. Marie Kondo helped me see that I was not tied to my books. If my books were not bringing joy to my life then I was allowed to get rid of them. And honestly, that realization, no matter how obvious or silly this may sound, was such a relief.

When I accepted that I am not my stuff, it was like a burden had been lifted from me. Just because I bought something did not mean that I was obligated to keep it forever. Even though it hurt slightly because of all the money I had spent, purging my books gave me a peace of mind that I hadn’t experienced in a long time.

The books, however, were just the catalyst into my minimalism journey.

I began to purge many things, and I dove deeper into the whole minimalism movement. The further I explored minimalism the more I realized that it was about more than just the stuff. Minimalism of course helped change my relationship with stuff, but it also led me to change my relationship with myself and the world around me. The things I’d dreamed of before, like the big house, became unimportant to me. I realized I hadn’t really wanted those things just for me; I had wanted those things to create a version of myself that I thought was impressive. Minimalism is what woke me up to the fact that I was living for external validation. What other people thought of my life was too important to me, and that needed to change.

Now, that’s not to say I still don’t struggle with wanting stuff. And I still have tendencies to want to like things just because I think it’ll make me more interesting. I think that is just part of being human. It’s a lifelong journey that I’ll continue to work on. But I am grateful to minimalism for giving me the space to view the world in a different way, and for presenting me with the fact that the meaning of life is not found in a store.

Clinging to Old Dreams

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I am often disappointed by my failure to become who I wish I was.

I always want to do more and be more, but I lack the energy and gumption to really try. I envision a version of me who is good at things and who knows what she wants. But the true me doesn’t really know what she wants. And she never sticks with things long enough to become skilled.

I am an endlessly curious person, but the truth is, there isn’t much that really compels me besides learning and reading. Sure, I’d love to knit things for my family or write novels, but I’m just not very compelled to put in the effort to finish those projects. And I wonder if I cling to these dreams only because I don’t want to let that ideal version of myself go.

Novel writing has been a dream of mine for most of my life, but I’ve long questioned if this is something I still truly want to do, or if I’m merely holding onto a dream that no longer serves me. When I was younger I was always generating ideas and working on stories. I rarely made much progress on any one novel, but I was so compelled to write. I can still get enjoyment out of writing fiction, but it’s not the same as it was. I just don’t have that compulsion anymore.

But letting go of that dream feels like a failure, like I’m letting my past-self down. It feels like I’m letting a part of myself go, but I guess that is what growing requires – releasing our past-selves and past dreams that don’t fit who we are presently.

This is not to say that I’ll never want to write a novel again, but right now that dream only seems to be weighing me down. I need to give myself permission to let that go. I do not need to write a novel to ‘prove myself’ or ‘make myself worthy.’ Writing a novel will not make me a better person, nor will it make my life magically better. Writing things like this blog post is what I want to write – these are the thoughts that fill my mind.

It comes down to this: accepting myself for who I am right now is what will serve me best. I expect too much of myself, and never meeting those expectations leaves me with feelings of guilt. It’s sad really – I never expect my family or friends to do more or be more, yet I expect it of myself. Self-love comes from accepting ourselves as we are, not who we have the potential to become.

Impulse Buying a Skateboard + Other Woes

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Hello Reader,

Have you ever impulsively bought something – something you really didn’t need or even realized you wanted – and then instantly regretted it? Well, maybe not instantly. More like after it already shipped and it’s too late to cancel?

Yeah.

I recently bought a skateboard. Never in my life have I thought about buying a skateboard. Yet here it is sitting in my room. I also bought a helmet. And some knee and elbow pads. And lest I forget, I also bought roller skates. I’m usually pretty good at controlling my shopping. I rarely buy things I don’t need or, at least, really want. So what exactly happened here?

Well. Lately I’ve been living on cloud 9 a bit. I had an article I wrote published on a website, and I’ve been coming out of the mental funk I’d been dwelling in. With my mind clear, I decided to jump back on the fun bandwagon and was searching for activities I could join in. I came across a women’s skateboarding group that looked like fun. Here was a group of cool women having fun together and inspiring each other. I felt inspired. Inspired enough apparently to impulsively buy a skateboard.

I’ve never had much of an interest in skateboarding. Nor do I have much experience. My experience with skateboarding amounts to a few times where I sat on a board and rolled myself along, managing each time to run over my fingers. My smushed fingers and bruised ego from those experiences left a sour taste in my mouth about the whole thing. But seeing these cool women doing something new and fun made me want to give skateboarding a proper go. I wanted to ‘surf the concrete’ like them.

So really, I bought the skateboard to feel like I was part of a group. To feel like I was doing something cool. And that’s not to say that I wouldn’t enjoy skateboarding if I tried it, but the fact is, it’s not really something I have any strong desire to do. And honestly, I feel silly for buying it in the first place (but that is a whole other bag to unpack, and we don’t have that kind of time). Like what am I trying to prove here?

But I don’t want to be too harsh on myself. I just really want to have more fun in life. I hate saying it, but being a grown up can be a bit… boring. We get so stuck in our routines and in our worries. There isn’t always time for pure fun. And I get stuck in my head, thinking the same thoughts over and over again. I want to do something that’ll help pull me out of that negative space and give me something fun to focus on. Skateboarding seemed like a fun outlet.

But as I noted earlier, I also bought roller skates. Now, roller skating is something I used to genuinely love doing, and it has crossed my mind over the years that maybe I should buy myself some skates and take it up again. I even told my sister that for my 30th birthday I’d love to go to a roller rink. Since I was already shopping for a skateboard, my mind naturally went to roller skates. And gosh, roller skates are not cheap! But I told myself it would be fun to have them.

However, I regret purchasing them. Again, I feel silly for buying them in the first place. This was such a frivolous purchase, and one that I’m not sure I’ll use. While I wouldn’t label myself a minimalist, I do use minimalism as a tool for my life. A minimalist lifestyle is something I value, and this purchase went against that completely. To me, minimalism is about living intentionally, and this purchase was anything but intentional.

As I said before, I am looking for more fun in my life, but I feel a bit like a puppy scampering about distracted by a bunch of shiny new things. I am allowing myself to be whipped around by the wind. My decisions are lacking intention and are instead becoming too impulsive. Instead of stopping to really ask myself if I really want to learn to skateboard, I just said ‘that seems fun, why not?’ And now I have to deal with the whole return process when I wish I would have just given these things more thought and then decided not to buy them.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with jumping into new things without a second thought. The problem I have with my purchase is not with skateboarding or roller skating. My problem is with the purchase. I didn’t explore options outside of buying these items. I could have asked someone I know if they have a board I could borrow, but I didn’t. I could have gone to the roller rink a few times and rented skates to see if skating was something I really wanted to take up again, but I didn’t. I bought these things without a second thought.

I went against something that is important to me.

But, the silver lining here is that this has been a bit of a wake up call. I now see how my spending lately has been more than I’m comfortable with, and that I’m not putting my money to the best use for me. I’ve been throwing my money around like I’m P. Diddy or something. And that is just so not like me.

I need to take a step back, breathe, and then intentionally continue on my quest for fun. ‘Cause we all could use more fun in our lives, no?