A head or a heart decision?

The leaves haven’t turned yet, but it feels like we’ve skipped autumn and winter is here. The lighting of our wood-burner reminding me of cosy Christmas holiday days. The need to wrap up warm and cosy up indoors calling me more strongly than the windy and wet outdoors. If you like winter this probably sounds quite nice, but I need warm weather and I can’t believe I’m not abroad somewhere hot yet.

I’ve been frustrated. Frustrated with my lack of plans; a lack of exciting trips or a big new project. It’s a frustration with the feeling of being in the space in between. The space in between with no visible end. Its like I jumped, expecting to find solid ground at the other side, hit the ground running and find exactly what I needed.

But I’m not doing what I had in mind. I don’t know what I had in mind but it definitely involved doing something independent and overseas by now. Or at least having something planned. I was probably going to go and find myself in Asia or go on a spiritual retreat or make life-long friends on a remote island or whatever. You know, like I’d have done on the “gap yah” I never had.

But I’m here in a wet and windy coastal English village as my favourite running routes become permanent bogs for winter and the sea becomes one degree colder than my wetsuit is built for (or so I tell myself). Life slows as the area’s population declines with the emptying of holiday lets and second homes.

I’ve been fighting against it. The slowing down of life. Not because I don’t enjoy it but because I’m worried about being left behind. I look around me, or more accurately I look at my phone screen, and see people achieving so much, having so much fun, and just generally living the opposite of a slow pace of life. The people I see on my phone screens are me, three months ago. And for most of my life before that. I’ve never really stopped because I live in a world taught its bad to stop. Society tells you to be more productive. Multi-task. Always work towards your goals. I suppose that’s what society needs for perpetual economic growth, so that’s how society raises you. But, my God its been amazing just doing one thing at once and doing lots of unproductive things with the end result of ‘it just felt good’. To go for a walk for as long as I want, to not feel guilty for binge-watching a series or doing some artwork, to eat breakfast without looking at my phone.

It feels good, but I still fight against it. Because the moments in between leave me discontented. A tendency to reflect on what I’ve done and compare it to what I could have done or what others are doing leaves me feeling a need to plan something ‘worthwhile’. But until I compared myself to the over-stimulated-yet-high-achieving version of myself and to others I was perfectly content digesting my breakfast without also digesting the latest about Brexit. The quote “comparison is the thief of joy” has proved really quite accurate recently.

Even though not having a plan isn’t something that sits well with me, a promise I made to myself to think with my heart rather than my head has me firmly on solid ground in the UK for the time-being. I never thought not doing something would be so hard (and yes, I know how first-world problems this is…and yes, again, I’m comparing myself to others). I’m in a struggle against the temptation to throw myself into something new to distract myself from feelings of inadequacy or underachievement by choosing just to be and not have something society deems worthy to show for my time. Its always been a head and heart battle for me and for the first time, the heart is calling the shots.