Learning Patience

Sometimes distance is necessary. 

In the everyday turns of events worldwide, I have found that taking a step back, not just from in-person interactions but from online ones, can help your mental state greatly. Whether those significant stressful interactions are small, they can all affect your day-to-day way of thinking.  It creeps in slowly, causing you sorrows here and there until it builds into full-fledged depression.  So taking time away from others and getting to know yourself is necessary.  We spend so much time on our egos and what we want others to see of us that it is often hard to keep up that facade. 

Remember who you are not just to yourself but to others as well is a good thing to connect with.  So what you put into social media invites others’ thoughts of you into their lives. We are spread thin and lose sight of our true selves.

Recently, I found myself trying to figure out what I want to be doing. I have acquired the hobby of working with aquariums, terrariums, and paludariums. There is no judgment. If things survive, I know I did a good job. If they don’t, I know I need to go back to the drawing board. 

So taking a break from writing, besides this blog, has been necessary.  There have been a few instances in my life that have made me stop and take pause before acting.  I recently had two stories stolen again, making me want to give up.  I know that is just my immediate reaction to the situation because it can feel like a never-ending hopeless endeavor keeping up with everything people do in response to what you put out.  The public has always had a love-hate relationship with my stories. Loving them is excellent; loving so much, you want to claim them as your own is another thing entirely. 

I have found in my solace that not everyone is meant to be in your life either. Losing friendships you thought would be permanent fixtures in your life often isn’t your fault.  Sometimes you are just not a good fit into their plane of existence. 

I firmly believe that ego is the number one culprit of why someone is in your life. You even may be one of those people. That is okay; owning up to it is another thing.  You may be the person there to lift someone during a bad time.  Often this will come to serve only that person you are there to lift.  When things get real, as in you have a bad day and want to share it, that person may not want to see that you are a person at all. They just want to keep you in that “adoring fandom.” You are no longer beneficial to their psyche when they see you as that person. So often, they choose to leave your life.  They aren’t choosing too often with malicious intent, but instead, they never really wanted a true friendship or a genuine connection.

Most of us have spent much time beating ourselves up over life’s little speedbumps. I have learned not to hold on to things that no longer value me and vice versa.  It can be painful to admit that we are, in a sense, harbingers of negativity in our lives.  

In a recent conversation with my husband, he and I spoke of how the world looks at things differently and constantly evolving.  We don’t always feel like we have caught up and are only in our early forties. 

I’m sure we are not alone in that.

So as I sit here, coffee in hand, thinking of how I would like to spend my time on this earth and what I want to accomplish, it is simple: live fully, unselfishly, and with patience.  Patience not just with myself but others and understand better that while things may suck at times, that is living.  Life is what you make it.

KB