One Size Never Fits All
Who are you doing that for? Whose life is it anyway?
The balance between living to work and working to live is precarious. Has it always been this way? No. But “they” want you to believe that it’s always been this way AND you can’t change it.
For example, after COVID lockdowns, work from home became a lot more popular. All the stories that those who work from home are way less productive were utterly disproven. Yet, here we are, major corporations are starting to demand workforces return to the offices. A lot of people are going to increasingly face the live-to-work/work-to-live problem as this continues.
You’ve probably been worn down most of your life. From teachers to parents to friends and even random strangers, you’ve been told how you must do “X”, “Y”, and “Z” to be a good person, contribute to society, meet expectations real and imagined, and the like.
I have a nontraditional job. Between being a writer and working part-time as a virtual assistant/copywriter/website and SEO specialist, I keep busy. For the most part, I’m content with this arrangement. I do what I do because I love to do it.
One size never fits all. I’ve tried to fit the mold. Thus, I’ve held 9-5 jobs of varying stripes, worked in several different industries, and made many an effort to be who and what “they” expected me to be.
This made me miserable.
I recognize that I’m extremely privileged, for multiple reasons, to be able to do what I do. Because of this, I strive to be of service to others and share ideas you can use to live life more on your terms.
One size never fits all
One of the biggest issues with political parties is the overarching idea that everyone falls in line. This was looser, not so long ago, but today it’s all or nothing. This is why partisanship is increasingly gumming up the works, making this rougher for everyone than necessary.
The biggest problem with societal “norms” is that no two people are alike. What makes me happy might make you miserable. I love to write; you might hate to write. Food is a source of memory and comfort for me; it might be naught but necessary sustenance for you. Music that I love might be a horrid assault on the senses for you.
“Normal” is like beauty and perfection – it exists entirely in the eye of the beholder. For example, “normal” for me, as a child, involved living with my mother 90% of the time while traveling to visit my father and/or his relatives for most holidays and school breaks. “Normal” for my wife involved extended family gatherings centered around her parents and their home for holidays, weekends, and the like. She had the same family home for 30+ years; I’ve never lived in the same house for more than 9 years or so.
We both have our definition of “normal” and couldn’t be much further apart than it is. Yet we came together and have an amazing relationship, so what does that say about the impact of “normal” for anyone?
Who are you doing that for? Whose life is it anyway?
It’s so easy to do things out of expectation. How many people live their lives in a hamster wheel? Day in, day out, because that’s what you do, right?
There are an obscene number of obstacles, reasons, excuses, explanations, and rationales for living life the way others want you to. If you don’t do as expected you’ll be shunned, voted off the island, and ultimately suffer as such.
As Paulo Coelho so beautifully states in The Alchemist,
“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself.”
Just about every fear everyone has is rooted not in the fear itself, but in the expectation of suffering that will occur. If what you fear comes to pass the suffering will be awful. Fear of failure is about suffering ridicule, helplessness, and the like. A fear of spiders is about them making you sick, causing you harm, and somehow hurting you. Fear of abandonment is not about being alone, it’s about the suffering of loneliness and feeling lost, disregarded, and worse.
Suffering. It all comes down to suffering. The greatest irony being that avoiding suffering tends to cause more suffering.
I worked the mind-numbing 9-5 job. Every day, I dreaded what lay ahead. For 10 or so hours of my day, I was discontent. This did a real number on my mental health.
When the opportunity to do something that made me more content came along, I took it. My life is not perfect, but then neither is anyone else’s. But who am I doing it for? Whose life is it anyway? Me and mine.
It looks selfish, right? It’s not. Because I’m the only one living in my head, heart, and soul. Likewise, you alone live in your head, heart, and soul.
Find and/or make time for you
To have a home, internet service, food, clothing, and so on, you need to work a job. You might not have a choice but to do something you are not fond of, that grinds you down, that doesn’t satisfy you. One size never fits all. Someone else might love what you do.
The challenge is to find and/or make time for you. Do something different, make time to do something you love, be with people you enjoy spending time with, and so on. Find and/or make time for you to be your most genuine self.
You are the only one in your head, heart, and soul. You alone know what makes you happy or not. Know that you are worthy and deserving of taking time to do things for you, for your mental health, for your wellness and wellbeing.
You don’t need to be what anyone else expects you to be. That can be both exciting and terrifying. No matter who you are, where you come from, or what you do, you deserve to find and/or make time for you. Since one size never fits all you deserve to have your needs and desires met.
Find and/or make time for you. One size never fits all. You don’t need to live a life of nothing but suffering, so do something that brings you joy. Inject that positivity and see what that feels like. Kick ass, take names.
Choosing for yourself because one size never fits all isn’t hard
It’s all about practicing mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, intentions, and approach to direct your actions.
When you recognize and acknowledge that what you desire for your life isn’t necessarily what anyone else thinks you should, you can make choices and decisions to work with that and have, be, and do more of what lights you up. Knowing that one size never fits all, you can find and/or make time for yourself and anything that brings you joy, infuses positivity into your life, and feels authentic, good, and true for you.
This empowers you, and your empowerment can empower others around you.
Consciously choosing your approach to life towards positivity or negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts life in a way that opens greater dialogue. With a broader dialogue, you can recognize, explore, and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you here and now.
Choosing thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions for yourself employs an approach and attitude of positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for your life.
The better aware you are of yourself here and now, the better you can choose and decide what, how, and why your life experiences will be. When you empower yourself, it can spread to those around you for their empowerment.
Thank you for coming along on this journey.
This is the five-hundred-and-fifty-sixth (556) entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.
Please visit here to explore all my published works – both fiction and non-fiction.
Follow me here!
