Try this experiment – open a bag of Skittles and pour some into your hand. Close your hand and hold it out in front of you for five minutes. After a while, your arm starts to get tired, it might droop a little, and the Skittles will feel a lot heavier. And you know, in your mind, all you have to do is open your hand, let the Skittles fall out and drop your arm, and you can rest easy. But you also know you can’t do that until someone tells you that you can drop your arm, and you still might not even drop the Skittles.
This is what stress feels like. It’s a bunch of small problems that we view as crucial, momentous decisions that begin to pile up, and just seem to keep piling up. And we have two options: we either hold onto them with a death grip, or we choose to let them go. Letting go can be the hardest thing in the world. But I want to tell you how you can begin that process.
One of the Skittles I carry in my hand is constant judgment from others. I live in almost constant fear pf other people judging me, watching me, staring at me. It is often times so frustrating and constraining that it can prohibit me from doing things I would otherwise love to do. And it is so hard for me to let go of that and do what I want to do (within the boundaries of the law, of course).
But lately, I have found that thinking the following two things has helped me get over this fear:
1) Screw what they think, I live for me.
2) I know this has a purpose.
Or, in other words, LWP: Live With Purpose. Let me give you an example. There was a day during my spring semester this past year that students could walk around campus barefoot to show support for children around the world living without shoes. I was so nervous to do this because I didn’t know how many other people were going to do this, and I knew I would get some funny looks from people. But I did it anyway, because I knew why I was doing it, so I said to myself, “Forget the funny looks, I’m gonna go out and own this.” I went to bed that night feeling so proud and accomplished, and freed.
Being an introvert, sometimes it can take me 10 minutes to rationalize something, while other times it’s taken me days. But once I find a purpose to doing something, I’ve started to train myself to go after it if it’s a worthy pursuit.
But I’m still learning to let go. I’ll be learning for the rest pf my life how to let go. And there will be people that come along and tell you to never let go of people or things that have hurt you in the past, and to use that anger as motivation to succeed and prove them wrong. But what these people don’t realize is that they are living for someone or something else. In that case, they’ve put their arms down, but they haven’t let go of those Skittles.
Learning to do both, putting down your arm and letting go of your Skittles, is the key to less stress. Live With Purpose. Each word means something in that phrase. “Live-“ it means something different to everyone. How you live your life is going to be different than how someone else lives theirs. We all experience life differently. And once you give that life of yours purpose? It’s such a beautiful thing. But you can’t have one without the other. Take time and find a purpose to what you are doing. It might take some time, but remember: your life matters and has a purpose. And once you find it – LIVE.
