Greetings from Surabaya, Indonesia!
I am writing this as I see the sun rises from my room. But you’ll get this later in the midday Indonesian time, so yah.
After traveling for 780km from Jakarta, I’ve had lots of epiphanies. It might take a book to write them all.
But one that stood out to me this morning as I sipped my tea is that…
I am no longer at the age of forcing things to happen
I’ve learned that from my travels. Maybe 3 years ago, or just a year ago (because I was still in a mental state of pre-pandemic), right after the pandemic, I would insist on things to happen in a certain way.
A simple one is my itinerary.
When I was at that age, my mindset was, “This activity and that activity must happen. If not, what’s the point of me going there?”
These days, I go with the flow — I literally just booked my island hotel for tomorrow 8 hours ago haha. I see what’s feasible for my energy and time. Seeing one major attraction for the day and immersing in it fully, I’m grateful already.
Two-way relationships
I cherish and prioritize two-way relationships these days.
If it’s one-sided, I drop it. I have no time and energy to maintain one-sided relationships anymore, as I would force myself to do so in the past.
I will talk about how two-way, quality relationships are the core of thriving businesses in the future, so stay tuned.
Recently I encountered someone who’s at the age of forcing things to happen.
It perplexed me for a bit, why is this person forcing something that clearly is not working? Not feasible for the situation?
While it is clearly not my place to judge a person’s characteristics, but this person’s forcing habits (which included gaslighting) are affecting my life, and to a grave extent, my mental health and sanity.
I went through hurdles to reclaim and safeguard the quality of my mental health. Maintaining that means I would not and could never simply let someone trying to gaslight me ruin all that effort.
Of course, I had to intervene and reevaluate the quality of my relationships.
That is until I found out that this person is at the age of forcing things to happen. Ah - that makes sense.
I was at that age. I know how it feels. I empathize now.
While it’s fun and all to be prime and insist that the world owes you, the reality is that if something doesn’t work, it would not work. Let it go before it crushes you.
Because rebuilding takes time.
But sometimes, we need to crumble, before we can grow back stronger. So that we can see things clearer next time.
And that is mostly, one’s own journey to discover. No one else can help you, but yourself. So, help yourself.
Are you the kind to force things to happen? Or someone who lets it go? Or are you in the midst of both, in the process of leaning more to one side or depending on the situation?
F