Worth sticking up for

How many times have you held your tongue or put the needs of others before your own? Often the idea of being selfless is something that is praised but the reality is that it’s often just self-sacrifice.

When the person that puts others first is around people that put themselves first, they end up losing. The unfortunate truth is people won’t always be considerate of you so you have to be considerate of yourself.

Not sticking up for yourself can be a combination of people pleasing, avoiding conflict and a lack of self-worth. It often shows up in the smallest of ways.

It might seem like it’s not a big deal and it isn’t if it happens every now and then. However, if you spend your whole life not sticking up for your wants and needs then you’ll end up living a life that caters to other people.

Start slow, take it easy and remember that sticking up for yourself will always be worth it even if it feels difficult in the moment.

Joy and tragedy

It’s can be easy to end up feeling guilty for being in a state of of joy when you know that people in other countries have had their lives turned upside down. How do we balance joy and tragedy?

I think the answer is that we don’t.

I used to think to think that you needed to be in a place of feeling what the other people were feeling to be able to show care and support for what they were going through.

But there’s this idea that I’ve seen come up a few times, about how it doesn’t really benefit anyone for you to be in a deep place of sadness or feel guilt for your own joy because of what might be happening in various places across the world.

I think sometimes this idea gets twisted into this thing of people not caring which is unfortunate. For me it just means that you don’t have to tailor your feelings to align with the tragedies of the world and you don’t need to put your happiness aside. It’s okay to have your moments of joy.

Order status update

I recently placed an online order from a beauty retailer and one from a fashion retailer. Both orders were delayed and the companies handled things totally differently.

One company handled it by providing regular email updates on the status of my order, to apologise for their delay and assure me that I’d receive my parcel as soon as possible.

The other company did nothing, in fact I had to contact them to try and find out what the issue was.

Something as simple as an email was enough for me to feel like a company cared. It wasn’t personal but the choice to send an update gave the message that they value their customers enough to let them know what is going on.

I think sometimes we underestimate the impact that something simple can have. But you don’t always have to solve the problem, sometimes just acknowledging that there is one is more than enough.

What matters most?

Sometimes the choice you have to make is between taking care of yourself and meeting other peoples expectations.

Nobody wants to be considered a let down which is why often people end up putting themselves aside and focusing more on other people. But you shouldn’t treat yourself as though you don’t matter, you matter just as much as everyone else.

It shouldn’t take you sacrificing yourself in order for other people to be happy.

And maybe you haven’t even realised that you’re doing it. Perhaps it just takes you looking at things as an outsider to realise, you’re so focused on meeting other peoples needs that you’ve stopped making time to tend to your own.

Unideal situations

I recently had an unanticipated situation occur, in fact I’d describe it as unideal. At first I found myself focusing on the situation, all that had occurred and how it had led me to feel.

But the more I got thinking about it, the more I found myself zooming out and thinking about this situation in the grand scheme of life and death.

Doing so allowed me to pick up on other things happening in the different areas of my life.

Sometimes it takes an unideal situation for us to become aware of the aspects of our life that require some care and attention. I think that my choice of word is so important here. It’s easy to fall into an unhelpful mindset of thinking everything is a mess. The reality is that sometimes things happen just to remind us to stay on track, pay more attention to ourselves and to take better care of ourselves.

Start showing up

It’s important to show up for the things that you care about and for the things that matter. It doesn’t need to be for praise and attention, simply do it for yourself.

This can be applied to so many things. Maybe you’re passionate about the environment, you might even have lots of good ideas or thoughts worth sharing. However, you don’t share about it online, you don’t volunteer and you don’t talk to your friends about it.

I think all the reasons to not show up stem from fear. Fear of not being good enough, fear of being judged even a fear of being seen.

It’s okay to feel all those those things but don’t let that stop you from showing up for the things that you care about.

A writers growth

Looking through drafts is a great way to observe your growth as a writer. Many time you come across things your current self would never write and so you press delete. Other times you come across good ideas that are poorly written out and you then have the option to just delete them and start over or to tend to them with a fresh perspective.

I believe that most writers drafts or deleted content far outweighs what they’re shared and put out into the world.

It’s quite obvious that the things that get deleted aren’t considered worth sharing. Perhaps, it had been in your drafts for a few months or even years but every time you went back to it, you didn’t really like it enough to work on it a little more and complete it. Maybe it just wasn’t a good idea, it happens and it’s perfectly okay.

Then, there are the drafts.

There are days when you write, write and write some more. This results in an influx of ideas and some of these ideas are ‘microwavable’ whilst others are more like seeds.

The ‘microwave’ ideas don’t take much time to be brought to life. They’re not necessarily instant but if you set a little time to work on them you can finish them fairly easily. They don’t stay drafts for long.

Then there are the ideas that are like seedlings, these ones require time, care and attention. They can’t be rushed and if if you ever try to hurry them along, you’ll never be happy with the result. But if you’re willing to have patience these ideas will flourish when they finally come alive in all their glory.

Least time, most value

If you could only listen to 3 artists for the rest of your life, who would they be?

I was thinking about this recently and I found myself surprised that the artists I’d choose are the ones I listen to the least. There was once a time that I listened to them the most but these days I listen to them only every now and then.

But they hold so much value that given the choice, I’d pick them everytime.

I think this is the case for many things in life, not just music.

It’s often the things that we spend the least time on, that we care about and value the most.

The wrong perception

How you view yourself impacts how you act. How you act, influences how you are perceived.

If you don’t think much of yourself, it’ll show up in your posture the way you speak and the kinds of things that you say.

And in turn you may be perceived as quiet, shy, uninterested, someone who doesn’t care. But maybe you have low self-esteem and maybe nobody taught you to think good of yourself.

Perhaps, even though you haven’t yet learnt how to say it or even show it, you actually care quite a lot.

On learning to voice your needs

I just googled not being able to voice your needs and there were about 1,220,000,000 results.

Being able to voice your needs is an important part of life. If you can’t say what you need, you probably won’t get it.

If you’ve ever been that person you might have been lucky enough to find someone that gets you. Not in any romantic sense but just someone that understands you even when you’re not able to find the words. That kind of person comes into your life through you being open and vulnerable enough to voice your needs.

It could be as simple as letting someone know that you need space, at first the person might be surprised or not take it well. But over time a good friend or someone that cares about you will understand that at certain times you need to be alone. And it won’t become an issue, they won’t try and make you feel bad or tell you that you have to have to talk now. They will listen and respect your needs.

On the flipside, people that aren’t able to voice their needs might end up falling into feeling misunderstood or uncared for and then carrying that feeling around them everywhere they go. But more often than not, that feeling isn’t true at all. It only feels true because you’re not saying what you need.