True Story

I have been listening to a lot of the same music lately. This morning, I went to the gym and put on my gym playlist. I found myself being fueled by annoyance at the repetitiveness of the sound rather than the beats. I waled home to get a change of clothes, listening to another tired playlist. I needed something different; it was driving me crazy. I decided that I need to take a break from music altogether, but also wanted something to take my mind off of the cold and wind. I settled on listening to a podcast. I sometimes listen to a podcast called "True Story" where people share stories of events that have happened to them. Some are funny, sad or compelling. I selected one at random to keep me company on my walk to class. This particular story was a little more abstracted, not so much about a monumental event but about how a small event carried a lot of meaning. The guy who was telling the story talked about moving out of his house without wanting to offend his roommates, and then being in a hurry to be on time for a new job. There was nothing monumental about the story, but he talked about a realization that he came to through a series of events. He spoke about worrying and stressing out about the struggle to meet the expectations that you expect others to have for you, and how that can leave you spread thin and out of touch with yourself. This resonated with me because that is something that I often do, and it is unsustainable. In an effort to please everyone around you and never disappoint anyone, it is easy lose track of what you want. And often, others have less expectation of us than we might assume. It is easy to forget that everyone else has a busy schedule as well and they do not always have time to think about whether you are doing well enough. This brings me back to the Mary Oliver poem that I have talked about before, Wild Geese. "You do not have to be good... you only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves." I think that it is important to remember to take care of yourself and to know when you need to put yourself first. I know that this is something that I struggle with often.