Dear No One,
I hope everyone had a good week! I had a ton of fun writing that short story. The one coming this week is even better. I think I’m either going to do different short stories every week, or maybe I’ll post a chapter of a longer story every week. Let me know what you’d prefer. If you haven’t yet, and you have some time feel free to read it. If not, no worries.
Last week kind of felt like purgatory. Did anybody else feel that way? It just kind of took forever to end. I feel like it was somewhat of a transitional period for myself and certain people in my life. It seemed like there was this weird tension with some of my relationships. I spent a lot of time just lying in my bed thinking about things that were said and things that weren’t. I just got the vibe that people just want me to get my shit together. They want me to grow up, be better. Believe me, I want that too. But sometimes I just want to… be. You know? Let me explain.
We’ve all had that talk, right? With parents, teachers, friends, bosses. At a certain point in our relationships, no matter what the dynamic is, we have that conversation of how everything we’re doing now is good, but we could be doing more to be better.
“What you did here is great, but I think this could make it better.”
“It’s not bad. Could be better.”
“Ugh, you’re better than that.”
The truth of the matter is, every single person who has said something like that to you? They’re right. You could be better. You know that, You want that for yourself too. You’ve been working on that day in and day out for the past how many days, months, years. And yes, there is always room for improvement. Nobody ever reaches a point where they’re just as good as they’re going to get. People evolve and grow all the time. We know that.
Don’t get me wrong, that mindset of, “I wake up every day trying to be better.” Is motivational as hell. More power to you, pal. The downside to that though, is when you’re spending day in and day out trying to be better, you’re not allowing yourself to be happy with who you are now. You’re always searching for things that you can work on and that’s great, but we forget that who we are now should be acknowledged too. I did that shit all the time growing up and still to this day sometimes. We’re told we aren’t good enough or we’re good but someone else is always going to be better. We’ve heard it from strangers, family, friends. Some people say it in a subtle way, some people are more blunt about it. The point is, it’s happened. Now, we have it ingrained in our heads that we always have to be better. We always have to be working towards something better. Never take your foot off the gas. Never take a moment to breathe. You want to know what happened while you were breathing? Six people just passed you on the better scale. Are you happy now? Congratulations, you’re officially lazy and stagnant. Well done.
That sounds so fucking ridiculous, doesn’t it? If someone talked to us like that in real life we’d shut that down real quick. So why do we allow it when it’s just us talking to ourselves? Why does the little voice inside your head get a pass to be an asshole to you? They shouldn’t.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to be better. I think it’s great. But, don’t forget to appreciate the person you are right now. Don’t get so caught up working towards something better that you miss the beautiful parts of you in this moment. You’re dope as hell the way you are now. Celebrate that shit. You deserve it.
Thanks for reading. I’ll be back before you know it.
Sincerely,
Jordan.