Even though in many ways I follow the rules (I don’t think I even skipped a single class at university), there are big parts of me that are rebellious and tend to run completely against the status quo. At a workshop with “The Art of Gathering” author Priya Parker that I attended last fall, I realized I’m a unique combination of both troublemaker and smoother over. I’ve found that I follow my heart and intuition more than analyzing specific facts and details as I lead my way through life, and for me this has worked, leading to opportunity, personal growth, freedom, and flexibility and the ability to design and live my life the way that I want.
It can have its challenges, as if you can’t fully explain why you want to do something a particular way that doesn’t necessarily match up with mainstream societal expectations, people may have the tendency to judge, or encourage you to do otherwise. You know you best, and it’s helpful to stick to your guns and go with your gut when it comes down to it so that you end up doing what’s right for you.
I’ve found that it’s not that people are trying to sway you from something maliciously, but because they may really care about you and also hold a particular fear themselves and don’t want to see you get hurt or fail or not have things go the way you’d hoped. Or they may be projecting their own issues on to what they’re hearing. The key here though, is regardless of everyone else and their opinions, it’s best to listen to and trust yourself.
Brother questioned my idea of starting a business
Drinking at my brother’s apartment one night, I mentioned I wanted to start my own business. We were in the living room, somehow alone for a short bit, despite the other guests lingering around in the background. My brother was likely concerned that I wouldn’t be able to succeed, and that I would have a long road ahead (or maybe fearful he would need to then take care of me somehow), so said I should look for a job instead of starting my own thing.
I remember being surprised when hearing this, and a bit hurt in terms of my ego, as it felt as if he didn’t have confidence and faith that I would be able to make it on my own. I used to be very good at hiding my feelings and my expressions, but I likely didn’t show that’s how I was feeling, and I don’t even remember how I responded at the time. I may have just brushed it off, or agreed and then changed the subject, but it’s something that I haven’t forgotten. My fears came up again, about not being able to do something as I was a female who didn’t have any experience with running a business, and why should I be the one who could make it happen when so many people failed?
All I knew was – I never wanted to look for another job again.
How did I know? After taking some time to travel over a year to 7 destination weddings following leaving a corporate job at a software company, I was looking for a business idea, hoping to start an ecommerce company if I could just find that one product line that made sense for me to spend all my time working on.
In between all those travel stints to friend’s weddings, I would occasionally think – okay, I guess I should look for a job just in case. As soon as I would open up Monster.com or Workopolis or another job site that was popular at the time, I would immediately feel the need to cry. My body would hunch forward, I would struggle to breathe, and my head would bow down, feeling like I’d been completely defeated. It was the last thing I wanted. The last thing I could ever do.
How could I get another “job” when I hadn’t even started looking at actual postings yet, and this is how I reacted?
Living life on my own terms
All the times that I stayed in something when my heart told me I shouldn’t, it was always right. The same was true for the opposite.
I decided to stay a lot longer in a long-term relationship at the time, likely as it was still serving some sort of purpose for me, but my heart knew it wasn’t the right thing. All my relationships came, one after another as a serial monogamist, for 3.5-4 years at a time. Often with those that I was better friends than lovers with, and just for way too long, until I absolutely had to get out of it as it wasn’t serving either of us in any positive way and caused a lot of extra turmoil that wasn’t fun for anyone.
Out of this came many things. Sleeplessness, sudden seasonal allergies when I was in my mid-20s that I had never experienced in my life until then, a general undertone of unhappiness, and exhaustion, as if I was obligated to take care of others first, that would wear me down tremendously. I felt generally unhealthy, had a very sensitive stomach, and also felt numb a lot of the time.
After that, when I was approaching 30, I spent 3.5 years on my own (sometimes dating, but never fully in a relationship with someone for an extended time period), and I finally felt alive! Really alive. Life was exciting, I was feeling happy most of the time, I appreciated so many of my experiences a lot more, and I stopped crying so much.
Being on my own was absolutely something I had never experienced – having time to learn about myself, by myself, without a relationship impacting my choices, where I would go, what I would do, how I would act. Especially as I often would do things for others at a detriment to myself, instead of making sure to take care of myself first and foremost (I still struggle with this at times as I am a caretaker, but have gotten much, much better at it over the years).
I started to live for ME – I chose where I wanted to go, traveled around the world, learned about new cultures and places, and felt truly free. It was like the freedom I felt when swimming in the lake where I grew up in Terrace as a teenager, with my arms outstretched as I moved forward through the cool water, feeling it run over my head and along my body. It was so energizing, empowering, and so ultimately freeing.
Barely spoke to my mom for months
At one point after being on the road for awhile, I had a really long fight with my mother. She didn’t understand why I kept wanting to leave the country and travel. She said it was a waste of money (that I didn’t necessarily have), and why would I be somewhere else instead of staying in Vancouver and working (like everyone else, is what I was hearing underneath the words).
This was I believe based out of fear and desire to be able to do the same thing herself (which I didn’t realize until later on, of course).
She didn’t want me gone, as that meant she may not able to see me, or else that something may happen to me while far away that she couldn’t control or help me with.
I think that she may have felt stuck and constrained throughout my childhood, without the choice to do the same herself, and so didn’t really understand my desire for it. She still doesn’t seem to understand that to me, this is something that runs in my blood and isn’t just a phase in my life. I would still do this constantly if at all possible, and I will continue to push for it in my life. Otherwise, it’s leaving myself behind.
So I continued on my way. I didn’t change my mind (do you see a pattern here?). Off I went to NYC for a month, then several other places, taking my belongings with me, and leaving a few sparse remaining items in my brother’s storage room.
We didn’t really talk for awhile, as I couldn’t understand really why she was mad at me and didn’t want to spend the energy fighting over what I couldn’t understand or make any progress with, as my arguments landed on deaf ears. Plus, I couldn’t make arguments or fight for myself when I wasn’t sure what the problem was. What was I trying to achieve with that? So instead, we didn’t really talk for a few months. I remember it was likely before my first 1 month stay in NYC, which was probably way back in 2012 or 2013, a couple of years after I started living this constant on-the-road lifestyle.
What this has meant for me
Being able to listen to yourself and follow your heart isn’t always going to be easy. There will always be someone on the outside, whether a loved one, friend, or society as a whole who will not agree with your choices and think you won’t be able to do something due to their own fears, issues or experiences. What works for them may not work for you, and the world is only as interesting and beautiful as it is with all of our unique personalities and desires.
Do what you need to do for you and don’t go status quo. Don’t lose out on what you could be doing to give you as an individual freedom, flexibility and fulfillment in your life. Take the time to listen to your intuition, and trust yourself.
Photo by Sean McGee
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