The World is My Oyster | aloneness, career, values & self-reflection

I have always been alone. Not always lonely but sometimes, yes. I have a little family unit and close grandparents which I adore but I have only had one relationship and have never managed to keep my friends for more than the length of time I was at a school. I don't mind it as such, but sometimes I wallow in what I must be missing out on and why being alone is so much worse than being tied to someone else. Overall, I am happy, as independent little old me. 

I have come to realise that wallowing in one's own self-pity as much as it can be cathartic or good for you, actually doesn't make you happy in the long run and is not the only choice either. I have learnt recently, having left home to travel up north away from my family to university, that as much as I always 'knew' that the world was my oyster, now I really believe it. 

The world is my oyster. 

My opportunities for life are endless. I can do whatever I want. There is nothing to keep me in any particular place. I can be whoever or whatever I choose. I don't have to stay stuck and wallow in self-pity about what I'm not doing, I can just go and do other things.

And yes, I do know that there are some limits, of course. Money is the biggest one. And my family and friends to some extent (although my friends are already spread widely around the UK). However, if money is realistically all that is going to hold me back from travelling my path and taking the opportunities of the world, then my limit is simply to stick within a budget. 

That may seem obvious, but once I realised that sticking within a budget was the only thing that was logistically holding me back from living my 'best life', I started to acknowledge the reason I wasn't already embracing life. I was not taking the opportunities or doing whatever I wanted to be because I had such strong mental blocks around each idea. I have had mental blocks preventing me from taking personal, career and academic opportunities for my whole life, but it is becoming more apparent how much that will hold me back now that I am off into the world on my own for real this time. 

Having realised this, I have got a new excitement for my future. My future had only seemed completely terrifying. The thoughts about renting, finding a job, choosing a career, being just me, making all these significant choices about my life, it was paralysing and just plain scary. This new excitement is exactly what I needed to be honest. (And it really has come at the most inconvenient time r.e. COVID-19.)

Embracing my life and my values.

I discovered this through having more spare time during the lockdown in the UK. Being able to search through careers, read books, watch YouTube and read articles/blogs in such a slow way, because I literally am not about to act on anything at the moment, has opened my eyes. I have mainly been digesting content from people of a similar age or life period to me who have taken opportunities in their life, pursued hobbies, taken risks, and just are enjoying where they're at in their journey. I began to notice the risks I hadn't taken, the hobbies that had fallen to the wayside and the small enjoyments that I just wasn't taking advantage of in my life. 

I am just determined now to embrace every little thing in my life as an opportunity to take some enjoyment or value. I don't want to wallow in the self-pity about not fulfilling my past in the way I would have liked, I simply want to embrace the future as best I can.

Through taking a look into other people's lives in books, videos and blogs, I noticed a lot of enjoyment, a lot of honesty, and a lot of enthusiasm. I want to embody those values, in any form that matters to me. Be that in my writing, my art, my career, my mental health, my physical health, my activism... 

I feel like I have been stuck for a while, plodding through, one day at a time, which has become thoroughly apparent during the lockdown with nothing to do but pass each day with uni work, some daily exercise, and tv. I didn't and didn't want to, look at the bigger picture of my life. The value I wanted to bring, who I wanted to be to the people around me, what I want my legacy to be, or even what I actually want in my life.

Much-needed self-reflection.

I am due doing some much-needed self-reflection, which I have begun to do, but there is a lot more to come. I need to evaluate what I want, like truly. I have had friends ask me recently if I ever think about it and honestly, it came as a surprise to me that they had thought about it. I began to recognise that I hadn't done any inner work on myself for an incredibly long time. I didn't really realise that to be able to live the life that I wanted and be content and happy or make a difference that I actually needed to ask myself what that physically would look like, what it was that I was adamant about pursuing. 

So, I have started writing again, somewhat. I am trying to commit to journalling occasionally. I am sitting with myself and letting myself think quietly. I have taken part in a poetry workshop where the subject was the self as a metaphor. Hopefully, this will help: help with figuring out what I am doing with my life, but also just to calm my mental health a little. As I have started to realise that just because I outwardly wasn't suffering from ill mental health, doesn't mean that I hadn't blocked out and bottled up so much that I was just ignoring any problems that may have been there.

Effectively, being in my early twenties and ready to start living my life on my own, as my own person, and separately from anyone else's life is fucking difficult to navigate sometimes. But I know that through a little bit of 'inner work', some time to myself, and living with enjoyment, enthusiasm and honestly at the forefront of what I am doing, I can live a happy life. I don't think I need anything too complicated or stressful to make myself happy, I have pretty simple wants. I just need to think more deeply about how to get there and enjoy the journey along the way.

I am honestly so excited about what the future holds, and I hope that I can actually take the chances I need along my journey to build the life I want to be living.

So, here's to, hopefully, more writing, more fun, more opportunities, and more happiness.

And if anyone is in some need of inspiration from some other twenty-somethings on the internet then I have been absolutely loving the content of Ashley aka bestdressed, Jade of Unjaded Jade, Ruby Granger, Eve Cornwell and Nayna Florence to provide me with positivity, candid thoughts and dreams about the future. These young women honestly have provided me with such enthusiasm and hope about my hobbies, interests, values, life, activism and just making it, out there, in the world. So, thanks to them. 

(They also inspired me to try out self-timer photos of myself which counterintuitively helped with my body image.)