Wholehearted Living

I don’t know if it’s the shift into the spring season or something a bit deeper but I am still wanting to change my whole life.

Somehow over the past few years my life has become very busy without actually getting a whole lot done. I’ve been assessing this for a while now and asking myself the big question of why? I truly have been feeling like I haven’t been able to really embark on many creative projects both professionally and personally. I just don’t have the time. In the past that was not the case.

So where is my time going?

I’ve observed my relationship with social media time and time again. “Is this where the time suck is?” I’d ask myself. And sure, I could be on social media less than I am, but also, I am not on it that much in my spare time. To be honest, I’m on it a lot while I’m working my 9-5 when I am already needing to be on my computer anyways. It’s 12:37pm right now, I’m not working my 9-5 today, and I haven’t been on social media at all.

This led me to looking at all the time I spend doing things that other people want me to do even when I don’t want to do them. All of the commitments and expectations that are placed on us all. I realized, this is it. This is the time suck.

As I started to realize it I started to observe it in myself and in others. That helped me to realize that there is quite literally a people pleasing epidemic due to all that is taught to us in childhood and then running on subconscious program as we make our way through our lives.

And when you stop people pleasing, that makes a lot of people uncomfortable. Heck, for a while it even makes you uncomfortable.

Here’s the deal though. We all have a choice. You don’t have to go to that baby shower. You don’t have to show up at the birthday party. You don’t have to attend events that you don’t want to attend.

Now I’m not saying that there aren’t some events that you shouldn’t attend even if you don’t want to. There are always outliers in each circumstance. But in general, you do not have to go do the things that you don’t want to do.

I am at a point where I am not doing the things that I don’t want to do. I will attend the events that I want to attend and I will politely decline the ones that I do not want to attend. If that upsets others, that is their responsibility. I am in a chapter of life where I am choosing myself.

That may sound selfish and it may even be selfish to an extent. But I have spent too long sitting at events that I felt were a waste of time and I have also spent too much time in bed feeling as if I was wasting my life away because I was sick and not able to go do things.

We all get one shot at living this life in this body. I am done living mine for the happiness of everyone else. Now is the time to live for myself.

Right now we all do things we don’t want to do because we feel like we have to. We show up halfheartedly because we are overcommitted and at max capacity. Imagine a world where we did things because we wanted to. We had lighter schedules and space in our lives. We showed up because we wanted to.

That is wholehearted living.

And that is exactly the type of life that I want.