Every day is a new day. That may sound cliche, but it’s true. Each day we wake, there’s a chance for something new. But for me, every day, I feel like whatever I’m trying to do is in constant flux.
Most of the time, I know what I want to get done. But, rarely do I accomplish anywhere near what I intend. Life tends to take me in directions I’ve never considered. Many of those detours are scary at first. Often, I try to cling to my comfort zone, but as I age, I’ve learned how unproductive that is. I have to roll with what I’m dealt, no matter the discomfort.
My creative energy waxes and wanes, not always in tune with my physical and spiritual state. But, even when my mental game is strong, my focus still tends to wander. This is a fairly common problem for many, as it turns out. But I don’t consider this commonality to be a valid excuse.
Human beings are always in constant flux, taking in new stimuli and forming new synaptic pathways. Beyond all of that scientific junk, no person is a static object. Each of us is constantly evolving in ways that we don’t at first realize, at least until we sit back and honestly reflect. Most of us grow in ways that aren’t obvious to ourselves. Sometimes our growth is more apparent to others in ways that we don’t recognize.
My primary concern is that I’m often not moving forward. So much of my life has seen me either backtracking or in an awkward holding pattern. Much of this is due to a lack of emotional intelligence and foresight, but these often come only through painful trials and errors.
Perhaps the only trick that’s gotten me through is my stubbornness. Even when I desperately want to give up and drift away, I always come back to try something a bit different. No matter how much my fortunes may fluctuate, even as my health grows more unpredictable, I never stop trying, even when failure seems inevitable.
There is one constant I’ve come to recognize above all others, though. You can’t expect failure. If you do, that’s most likely all you’ll get. Yet, I often find my emotional turbulence will cause me to forget this truth. I’ll flail around and wonder why nothing comes together. Yet, paradoxically, it’s in the flailing that I sometimes stumble into my next step I need to take. But, this is no way to live if you’re hoping to find any peace within yourself.
It doesn’t help that as our world is also always in flux, we are often quite resistant to change. That’s when we all need to step back and see what good things we have going for us, individually and societally. At the end of the day, our world can only be as good as where we each decide to go as a person.
Wandering is okay, long as you know what you’re trying to get out of life. Yet most of us chase goals that are just dangling carrots that will be long decayed by the time we track them down. Most of the shiny objects we desire are just that, and they are always brighter at a distance. When you arrive, you often realize that the tease wasn’t worth the reward.
The next time something or someone you love feels distant, come to realize this distance is often imaginary. The problem is you can’t appraise bridge that gap, and it’s sadly not worth trying. You just have to keep your drawbridge at the ready, but guarded too at all times.
When a loved one is feeling in flux, it can be immensely frustrating to us. We always want to help, but rarely know how. Then when the things we try just make matters worse, we blame ourselves. But while it doesn’t make things feel better, my decades on this earth have taught me that circumstances almost always get worse before they get better.
The sad truth is that many times you truly have to watch someone completely fall apart before you get to see that person truly shine. Unfortunately, the more common and painful outcome is you watch someone crumble and even fade away. But you have to hold out for a turnaround to happen. You just have to stay consistent in your optimism, no matter how rough it gets. Yet you also can’t just wait on the world to change. It will, yes, but rarely in the way you want or expect.
We’re all in flux, one way or another, even if we fail to recognize it. Each experience we have shifts our perspective more than we can ever know. It doesn’t matter how successful someone might appear or how confident that person may seem. There’s always little kinks in our armor that only those that truly know us well can see. When we don’t have those insights, though, the process of self discovery can be quite frustrating and unproductive.
None of us is perfect and never will be. We are in flux constantly simply by our sentient nature. We’re always trying to improve in one way or another, even if emotionally we aren’t aware of it. So, we must work on our natural tendency to mold ourselves into the best individuals that we can be. We need to use our energies for the better and stop wasting them on the trivial and momentary.
Yes, each of us will fall short more often than not. But there’s nothing ever better to do than to pick yourself up and keep going. We must constantly keep growing, even if that means making drastic changes. Too many of us fall into bad habits and mundane routines. But even if we never stop learning, the best thing to do is to apply what we learn. We accomplish nothing without application.
If you feeling in flux and are unsure yet where you’re going, remember that no one really does. Even the best laid plans are likely to fail, so always keep an ever evolving contingency plan. Always keep focusing on your own growth, then find a way to apply your learnings to help others. You may not ever get to where you intend, wherever that may be. But if you keep on trucking, you’ll end up somewhere beyond your wildest dreams.
~ Amelia Desertsong, February 24, 2024
P.S. this was adapted from a scrapped essay that had the right idea, but needed this massive overhaul. Like everything else in life, my written work is always in flux, and needs to evolve along with everything else I do!
