Like clockwork, I have a dialogue that reoccurs in my thought pattern daily; often somewhere between "brush your teeth" and "do you have everything?" before walking out the door in the morning.
Studies show that it takes two weeks to create a habit and I think that incorporating certain thoughts into our thought patterns is no different. When we consistently have a thought for a consecutive string of days, it becomes a staple; a habit, an unavoidable dialogue that we must engage in and behoove our conscious vs. subconscious.
I think a thought that goes like this:
Sitting on the thickly woven threads of a salvaged street couch, I folded my legs in towards my stomach. A deflection and protection mechanism of sorts. A wall for my sacral chakra, a position that secures the ego of my lower abdomen that takes the place of a belt when the loops around my pant waist remain loose and unfilled.
"I guess I did not have everything after all," I think to myself.
Although I was welcomed in, my shoes were not and they remain placed within the overturned lid of a cardboard box that I imagine many shoes, in many sizes, prices and age have rested before mine.
I'm asked what it is that I would do anything for. What in my life is so worth it that I would readily sacrifice the rest to pursue what I felt best? What could I not imagine living without doing or having?
At that moment, I think about jobs, about careers, success and money. I think about the possibility and all the professional fields that my personality test results have reported I catapult myself towards because there, I will be successful.
There, an INFJ will succeed just as the "Kate Middeltons" and "Mother Teresas" before her. There, a #1 ranked Achiever on the Strengths Quest will operate best where she has power, dominance and financial success. However, "there," still feels like something I could live without and do without; a surprising thought that I did not expect to have.
I suppose my follow-up thought rectified my cognitive dissonance when I began to think that the reason I would give any of that up is that there are always other ways to be successful, make money and do big things.
If it's not making it on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, then maybe it's hitting top 10 Bestsellers in the New York Times. And if it's neither of those, then maybe it's growing an organic garden; free of pesticides, hate and chemicals, feeding whole foods to almost-whole people, nourishing souls and stomachs alike and still knowing that if that too fails, I could live without it.
I was surprised that I couldn't think of a professional pursuit so important that I would be willing to sacrifice everything for it. I think this because, at various times in my life, I have held beliefs as to what I felt was best for me and what I felt I was certain of. But then a strange thing began to happen. My plans began falling through, my motivations began shifting and my dreams were interrupted and I woke up. I woke up to realize that what I previously wanted so badly, would not have been right.
Through this, I start to see my beliefs as fallible and untrustworthy. I realize that my tenacious protection surrounding dreams and pursuits is often invalid and energy invested in the wrong markets. These markets see losses, not gains. Their substance undergoes a process of depreciation; my dreams depreciate over time because the market changes and that's just the way things go.
I used to think the answer to these questions was a career or a self-manifested path. A job I would sacrifice anything for or a title that would intrinsically fulfill every square inch of my 5'4 frame and the deepest corners of my soul.
However, I was wrong.
I was wrong because the answer to those questions is not grown from the grounds where careers and professions are planted.
No. The answer to that question is a motivation, a person, a feeling.
What would I sacrifice all else to pursue? Relationships, family, friendships, in a word: connection.
Human connections don't have a next-best option; they aren't the chocolate chip cookie you settle for when you originally wanted oatmeal raisin. The fulfillment of relational connections can't be replaced for a spot on the New York Times Bestseller List like making it on Forbes 30 Under 30 hypothetically can.
People aren't replaceable. Connections are as intricate, detailed and specific as the ten thousand flakes of snow that paint the chipped, hunter green bench that sits there aging on the corner next to your favorite bodega.
Yet still, like clockwork, I think these thoughts and am reminded of the faulty nature of my dreams and their realities. I'm reminded that I invest in a stock that has flexible worth and unstable consistency which is contingent upon the status of my internal path to self-awareness. I think a thought that I once lacked an answer to and now have one. I then think another thought that makes me question my newfound answer.
However, what I do know to be true, despite the fluctuations and despite the static, is that connection is worth doing anything for because that, is something that is irreplaceable.
