The Journey to Self: Finding Your Arc in a Distracting World

The boat remains of “potential freedom.”

Borinquen, P.R.

It's not you (maybe sometimes), but most of the time, if you know you are working on yourself, it's other people who haven't put in the time to get to know themselves.

Personally, I know I can be a little hard to deal with sometimes, but if I hadn't reflected on this, I might not have realized how important it is.

The feeling you give others is important. I have carried memories and looked down on myself for reasons such as people not wanting me in certain conversations. Why am I trying to please others? Why am I oversharing about things I want to keep to myself and treasure for myself?

“If I were this…” “If I were that…” Opinions and what-ifs cloud our minds. I admire those people who are able to focus on things as simple as they are actively present. It is amazing because few things are influencing the way they are thinking about what actually is.

Being a person who is constantly in their head about what happened in the past and what might happen in the future, it is difficult to retrain your mind to have a single focus.

Don’t get me wrong, there is skill that comes with having multiple lenses on how to think and view things; however, it can limit advancement in more ways than we understand in the present.

Sustaining the effort required to maintain focus is what usually leads people to give up on the idea that a single focus is feasible for them. With so many distractions in this age of technology, it's understandable why people feel that they cannot change.

My story arc is the constant battle with myself and how I manage to overcome it.

The thoughts are never-ending: where to go next and how to stay aligned with what I want to be doing to contribute to my life’s goals.

Thoughts like, “Should I book this trip?”

“Is it somewhere I really want to go, or did I just see someone else go there and now it’s stuck in my mind?”

“Should I save money?”

“Should I up and leave everything?”

“Do I even like the life I am living?”

“I need to set myself up to progress this next year.”

Among these many thoughts, staying grounded seems like the most difficult thing to do because it feels like the shore is far away, and I am deep in the ocean. The horizon is getting farther and farther away, and I can no longer make out whether it is the greenery, sand, or just a straight line ashore.

One day, after thinking, "Should I end it all? Who do I owe my life to, really?"

I answered myself faintly “I owe my life to myself.”

Again, don't misunderstand, the life I want to live does heavily involve others whom I also want to add to their lives as they do to mine. But there are times when we can only do what is best for ourselves, and we cannot feel guilty for that.

For this reason, it is important that the people around you also want the best for you in the way you have shared the best you want for yourself with them.

Not all the people you come across in your life are meant for you. As sad as it may sound, that is the truth. If you imagined your life as a TV show, those side characters that add to the plot but don’t stay are important at that moment, but in the long run, they just push you towards those who are truly there to influence the trajectory of your life’s decisions.

Instead of wondering what happened to that character who disappeared after a few episodes, shift the focus to how they may or may not have added to the circumstances around you and progress forward.

“Who am I now in this moment, and who can I be from now on?”

It sounds good in theory, but how does this look in practice? Controlling the direction of your thoughts, talking about the person you are right now, and considering the actions you are contributing to at this very moment.

Autopilot living is a modern disease that few are treating.

At the end of the day, when you look back, can you really say you were satisfied with the past few months, weeks, or days you've lived? If not, can you do something small to change that?

For example, write out a goal you have been putting off—it can be the smallest of things—and do your best to accomplish it by a specific date and time. The more specific you get in your life, the more focus will start to make itself a priority in your way of living.

It is your life. Unsolicited opinions, what-ifs, and doubts should be put on the absolute back burner.

At this point, you may or may not be sure that you only have this one life, and it can either be a waste by your standards or a blessing. The beauty of this life is that you get to choose its definition, and I hope you choose the latter.