076. Knowing When
Good day, I am happy to here. It has been quite the interesting journey getting here. So to be here, it feels much like relief.
Today started slow, one of those days where you push the thing you should be doing a little later and a little later until you completely misalign your time with your energy and now, you just feel lost. It was quite frustrating. That knowing of things must be done but I cannot seem to ground myself long enough to go, so, I stepped away. I recognised it was easier to step away, and start again than it was going to be for me to try and figure out where I should have been in order for me to continue.
All of this is tough. Juggling being a person and existing in a working environment. Knowing when to be social and when not be. Guarding your time. Identifying which habits carried out at which times lead to ‘suboptimal’ performance.
Today start off very social. Little moments of small talk that grow into more and more moments of even smaller talk until you are now just having conversations. None long enough for it to really warrant conversation, but consistent enough to make it difficult to get a page of reading done. Some of these things we do to ourselves. We carry on conversation we have either grown tired of, or were not interested in in the first place, because of the perceived ramifications or guilt that would come as a side effect of not having had stayed in the conversation. Sometimes, we simply do not know how to end a conversation, either way, we find ourselves in the middle of something that is not what we should be in the middle of.
This is one of those tougher things I am going to have to learn. Knowing when to step away, and knowing when not to start.
I imagine knowing when not to start would be the easiest way through it – know that and you’re set. However, to know when to start would require a knowing of self. An understanding of the conversations that could intrigue you. Or the moments when conversations could simply blossom into hours of discovery. However, from where I stand, it doesn’t seem as though these things can always be predicted.
Perhaps it means that there are certain hours of my morning where I do not allow any form interactions until certain tasks are carried out as to avoid not knowing what direction I wish to take my day in. Perhaps have grounding factors that bring you back to your focus amidst distractions. Perhaps these things could provide some resolve if I were to attentively try and action them.
I don’t know why it has always been so awkward to exist a conversation. I feel like that’s not something I know well to do.
Where I’m from – my country of origin, whenever I guest would leave, it would be it’s own hanging period. Firstly, while we were all sat in the room together, they would announce their near departure. After some little chatter, some expression of gratitude for the visit and the welcome, the guest would then announce their departure again. Some, 10 – 20 or so minutes later, they would be standing up and making their exit, some small chatter would develop on the way out until would eventually find a topic of focus outside the house. Often, it would be some discussion about the changes to the home, some new plants, tree cut down, whatever it was, it would last another 20 or 30 until the guests finally made it into their car. At that point, you were finally close to the finish line with the 15-20 or so minute conversation that would ensue between the entering of the car and the exiting of the gate.
I share this story to say this is very regular guest departure interaction from an environment I exposed to in my formative years. Endings of interactions often last longer than the reason that instigated the conversation.
Recently, I made a new friend. Before her, I didn’t realise how easily interactions can be ended, especially phone calls. To her, it is almost as if the niceties of my land of origin have not reached her, and I like that. It grants me the opportunity to learn.
When I was a kid, I always used to hate that lengthy exit, like just leave, I want to go back to watching my show. Now it’s just how I’ve adapted and it doesn't really bother me much, until it does. Until I have something I need to do that need my attention. Until I have people I have made myself accountable to that require my focus. It is then something that must bother me as time spent in places where in shouldn’t be, is time taken away from spaces that are in high need of not only the time, but the energy that is granted when time is spent wisely.
Tomorrow is a brand new day. Today didn’t go the way I had hoped, but I noticed something, I learnt something. For the day I spent learning this lesson, the time that could have been spent elsewhere, I will try and use the time I am allowed tomorrow to be better than I was today, so that I do not have to spend another day learning the same lesson.
Dear readers, after this, there will be 14 entries left of this series. From where, what is left does not feel like much. I am glad I keep trying, and I hope in your corner of the world wherever that may be, you are making sure to try your best. Thank you for being there to start another week me, I hope your week is full of wonder, and I hope you are back here for day 17 of the final 30 days of the Full Send. 😊
