Swimming Upstream
It’s been a while since I’ve rested with my thoughts and wrestled with my doubts. It’s been a while since I’ve sat with a blank page in front of me that didn’t start with:
To:
Cc:
Add a subject:
I know it’s been a while since I’ve explored my eternally internalized world because I haven’t let my hands glide across a keyboard, allowing myself to better synthesize the who, what, where, and why of my circumstances from the last few months.
“Who am I? What am I doing? Where have I gone? Why am I doing this?”
The usual gamut of bullshit questions and esoteric thoughts that philosophers and life coaches alike insist we can find answers to. Apparently, the answers are “within” but usually we find ourselves feeling more “without.”
Without thoughts, without answers, without structure. I’ve found myself without a care to find answers because lately, life seems to work better when I lean in and don’t go the extra step to uncover or create that answer.
When our energy reservoirs run low, the last thing we usually want to do is overthink when we don’t have to.
It’s a strange state of “busy” to be in when we realize we haven’t thought our thoughts in a while; when we find ourselves on autopilot constantly consumed by the who, what, where, and why of our external world: the world of work, schedules, routines, obligations, and checklists.
Who am I meeting? What do I still need to do? Where is this going? Why? (In my mind, this last question often sounds more like “whyyyyyy” and is generally intended to be rhetorical).
We become void of anything that is internally ours - sacredly ours.
We live in an environment that is heavily dominated by a sharing economy full of Airbnb’s, Ubers, and opinions.
Our five-year-old subconscious minds must have tucked away the words of our kindergarten teachers who insisted that “sharing is caring.” Though as we move through life, we forget to adjust this principle. We forget to turn inward and keep some things ours - some thoughts ours, some opinions ours, some dreams ours. We forget because we don’t give ourselves time to create these thoughts, opinions, and dreams.
Indeed, we can’t lose something we never had. I would say the same principle applies to the concept of forgetting: we can’t forget what we never thought of. However, we’ve all had thoughts, opinions, and dreams that were independently ours because if you’re reading this then you too were once five-years-old and the concept of sharing didn’t exactly exhilarate you.
There was likely a time where you didn’t share your toys, your snacks, or your imaginary friends. That sacred space existed within us once upon a time, we just forgot about it and have leaned away from it rather than leaning into in.
When we let go and “lean in,” we are placing a tremendous amount of trust in ourselves and our external environment. Typically, when we have the mental space and physical energy to think through this act of “leaning in”, it’s scary as shit… and we don’t do it.
Approaching the act of “leaning in” is similar to approaching the end of a high dive board when you’re scared of heights: You go through all of the mental work to get up there and ultimately peer over the edge and think “f*ck this - I’m out” as you climb back down the ladder you just spent an eternity making your way up.
I find that when we’re tired and our fuel light is flashing “EMPTY,” we have a higher tolerance to our fears because frankly, we don’t have the energy to be scared of the dark tonight when the light we forgot to leave on is so far away and we’re already tucked in.
We don’t have the energy to be scared of the spider we saw coming out of the drain while spitting our Colgate Optic White into the sink that we’ve left unclean for two weeks too long.
And in my case, I don’t have the energy to think through and be scared of what might happen when I lean in and let go because in all honesty, not spending time creating questions out of worry is an incredibly liberating thing. Accepting no answer as your answer is a refreshing thing.
Keeping some thoughts, opinions, and dreams sacred makes me feel like I still have ownership over some part of my life - despite being consumed by the who, what, where, and why of my external world.
Leaning in looks different for all of us but what we likely share is that it's been a while since we did so. For me, leaning in looks like intentionally processing my thoughts through the written word and not being scared of what I might find.
For someone else, leaning in might be sitting with yourself for 10 minutes while your phone is placed on silent in another room.
Whatever it looks like - when you find yourself too tired to keep swimming upstream, know that you're in the perfect place to lean in. Like a sleep-deprived mother gives in to her pestering child begging for candy, know that a few moments of refreshing peacefulness await you when you choose the path of least resistance and lean into yourself.