"it’s unnecessary to be perfect to inspire others. let people get inspired by how you deal with your imperfections."
How to start this, that’s always my biggest problem, how do I even start to write. So many thoughts floating around in my head so it’s hard to get hold on them. Just so much I wanna write about all the time. Every day I say to myself that before I go to bed I am gonna write down something that’s been on my mind all day. Something that I feel that I wanna share with someone. But I just never really take the time. Sometimes I just hate to have so many ideas about things I wanna do, because I never know where to start and I wanna do all of them at the same time, so eventually I end up doing nothing, or not giving it one hundred procent. And then I get even more frustrated and disappointed because I can’t get anything done. So at this moment I feel like I just spit out everything at the same time, just to get everything out of my head. So if you do understand what I am writing in this post, you’re probably as confused as I am, haha
Earlier this evening I went out for a run and bumped in to my neighbours when they were out for a walk with their dog, and the man said to me "Are you gonna go for a run now, this late? Isn’t it better you just go and sit down and wait until everything has calmed down?" He was just saying this as a joke because they think I am way to active and healthy. I was just laughing and said that’s not true, it’s just that they see me the few times I’m out running or doing something active in my garden, they are way more active being out with their dog twice a day. The man had no idea how wrong he was but at the same time so right. Because the reason I was out this evening was because I really needed to calm down and to go for a run is the only thing that helps me to try to get rid of all the weird things that is going on inside of my head. Of course he had no idea how much I am struggling with these "voices", not too many people do know. Because that is something I don’t talk about, because it’s not accepted these days to let people know when you’re having a bad day or when you’re going through something hard. Everything has to be so freaking perfect all the time! I and would say that this is the biggest reason why we do get depressed or get all these dark days. Because we are not on top all the time, or we are not out doing something impressive. And if we don’t we feel like we are not good enough. We feel this pressure inside of us to always be active everywhere to show people that we do exist. To make people see us. And to get some feedback from people around us when we have done something we feel proud of.
I guess now when you read this you think "but you are doing exactly the same right now." Yes I am, this is something I have been struggling a lot with in my life. I have always had the need to inspire people by the things I do. But I have never really known how to do it. Or how to stop doing things for others instead of doing things that makes me happy. When I started to travel in October 2016 I was writing a blog about everything I did every day because I wanted to share my experience with my friends and family back home to make them see the world and how different life is in other parts of the world. It was also a great feeling for me to just write everything down, since I was travelling alone I didn't have anyone to talk to about all the new impressions and feelings I got every day. It felt good to share it in some kind of way, even if it of course wasn’t even close to talking to a friend about it. But I have always had the need to write down my thoughts and feelings to get a little bit of it out of my head. After been writing everyday for eight month I just had enough and stopped post things on my blog. It got too much for me and at some points I forgot to enjoy what I was doing just because I felt that I needed to share everything with everyone back home all the time. After a while I started to miss the feeling of writing and to share my experiences with people, and I started a new really bad habit, to post everything I did on social media, and I can totally admit that it got way too far. I posted pictures and videos all the time on ‘my story’ to keep people updated about what I was doing. In my head I did this because I wanted to show people that to follow your dreams and travel the world will make you happy and again to show people that life on the other side of the world is so different from back home. To inspire people to follow their dream and to see the world to understand life more. Now I know that all I wanted was to have a friend to share my experiences with. I wanted it so badly so I didn’t even notice all the beautiful people I was surrounded by, how many great friends I had the whole time. And when I did realise it was too late and they had kept on travelling to a new place.
My biggest wake up call was around six month ago when me and some friends went to the beach. It was a beautiful warm and sunny day. We were dancing and singing while walking on the hot sand to find the perfect spot to settle down for the day. When I was looking up at the sky I saw that around the sun was a colourful rainbow. You know they say that if we follow the rainbow we will find a treasure at the very end of it. With this picture and those words in my head I started to think. Our whole life we are trying to follow the rainbow so we can find our treasure, running in an endless circle, to find out in the end that the treasure the whole time was inside of us. The big bright light we are trying to find to be happy will always be inside of us.
Later on that same day, after a nice refreshing swim in the ocean, one of my friends asked about the time. Before anyone of us got to answer she said out loud to herself, "the time is now, the time is present." It started out as a joke but after this day when I asked her about the time she always said "the time is now". It took me a while until I understood the actual meaning of those words. For me it was just something she said for fun, so I never really thought about the meaning too much. After a long conversation with another friend about my past, present and future and what I actually want to do in life I started to realise how important those four words are. The next morning I woke up with these words ringing in my head. I wrote it on my wrist and was reading it over and over again while really thinking about what those words mean. It was such a strong wake up call for me that I actually drove straight to the tattoo studio after my breakfast and now have it tattooed on my wrist. Maybe sounds a little bit impulsive, but as the tattoo says "The time is now", so why would I have to think about it too much. It was what I wanted at that moment and it will always be a good reminder that:
The time is now.
Yesterday has already been.
We know nothing about tomorrow.
All we have is right now.
Time waits for no one.
Be present in this very moment.
Make sure you always feel alive.
After this moment I deleted my social media for some months to just focus on me and what makes me happy and for me it was kind of funny how much feedback I got from friends who got inspired by me when I just stopped to care about everything to just take care of myself and do what felt the best for me. For so long I tried to inspire people by doing and saying things I thought they needed to hear, but when I started to do things for me, that’s when people got inspired for real. When I started to focus on living in the moment I realised how many magical friends I was surrounded by.
To try to live in the "now" is a daily exercise I do, sometimes I succeed, and sometimes I have those dark days when I am trying to find out what to do to feel better. But more about that another day.