gaining a "let it" mindset

I am back in the city after a month of soaking in the sun and crisp white wine. A month of never picking up a pen or opening my Notes app to write. Thank you for all your patience, support and kind words while I took some time off. <33

A few days ago I was sitting down in a cafe with my cousin, discussing our dating goals after we made a pact to bite to bullet and download hinge (not my proudest confession, but I did have to encourage her somehow, and she’ll apparently only jump off a bridge if I do). As she has never dated as an adult, she was unsure about certain “codes” and “understandings” that exist in the modern dating world. It seemed she was excepting some clear cut steps that the rest of us have known about for years, so imagine her disappointment when I had to tell her that most of us made up things as we went along, on a case-by-case basis.

Through the plethora of advice I was able to give her, I still felt unable to give her clear answers. Had I made no progress from dating through my twenties? “How can a person know everything at 18 and nothing at 22?”

Progress has been on my mind since my month long hiatus from my newsletter. Even in my ability to stop, I desired to know if I had advanced. How arrogant.

There is a certain instinct to categorise progress. And I’ve found that each time I succumb to a form of categorisation, I struggle to not add category upon category. Once I take a step upwards, I suddenly imagine myself capable of climbing hundreds of different ladders. The progress is no longer a singular success story, no longer singular at all, but rather a base line to keep climbing on.

The issue with this is that when I cease to see my life as a singular climb, a singular set of stairs, I suddenly fail to see any progress. How can I be proud of myself for doing one task out of twenty-seven? How can I consider my progress linear when I’m trying to go in every direction all at once? Does that not make every step I take forward, also a step I take backwards?

Perhaps that I why I was so set on be MIA for the past few weeks. Because I knew that if I remained online I wouldn’t notice any progress. If you sit down and scroll through different set of lives, yours will look bleak in comparison. How could it not when you compare your one life to a mixture of hundreds? So many of you resonated with this passage of my last essay:

Some of us are going through a breakup right now with the best skin they’ve had in months. Some of us are going through the loss of a pet with the brightest laugh. Some of us are going through career setbacks in the nicest apartment. Some of us are going through a turmoil of uncertainty feeling more confident in their body than ever.

A testament that we make all be doing well in one category and less in another. A testament that progress and loss go hand in hand. Two steps forwards and one step back. Two steps forwards and three steps back. No step forwards and no steps back.

But if we find every ideal version of those categories in dozens of others, we will naturally feel unsatisfied. Who made us think that we can pick up the best parts of our algorithm - of hundreds of influencers and personalities and ingrain them into one?

More than this, by optimising every part of our life, we lose confidence in each of them. This month, I decided to only have two goals. No professional goals, no social goals, no anything else goals. And what has it shown me? That I might not need to jot down professional goals because I know I work hard already. That I don’t need to challenge myself to become a yes friend because I’m already out and about almost every other day. I have found that I don’t need to put pressure on myself to work on something I already am. I can just let it be.

No longer do I wish to look at every aspect of my life and map out a goal for each. That way, the progress I make feels entirely natural, entirely seamless. I know I excel at parts of my life, so I have no need to voice them. Why not have a “let it” approach? What’s the worse that could happen?

Sometimes you try to control the world by shutting it out. You focus on your health programme, your to-do list, your intention board… The belief that you can control the world or yourself is an illusion. There will always be a birthday with a homemade tiramisu, always be an old friend reaching out, always be a good intention from someone else that will override your control. My advice? Let it.

The grocery store can wait on your last minute brunch plan. The reading list can wait on your all-day binge fest on a new romance show, or an old TV sitcom. The vacuum can wait on the drinks in the city. The party can wait on your evening slowing down. Who cares if the progress isn’t immediate? Steady wins the race.

The best progress comes from being who you are, not who you want to be. Figuring that out takes a lifetime. Disappoint yourself by creating a life you want now, rather a life a more conditioned version of yourself might’ve once mapped out for you.

Anastasia

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