Why do we limit ourselves?
These past days I pondered a lot, and one of the main reasons of my stagnation was thinking about some people that I surround myself with that I dont really like anymore as individuals and around me, it’s not that I got board. You know that saying about how the people you surround yourself with are a mirror of you and vice versa, yeah? This is what it is about, how I dont find myself in some people that I used to, how we don’t resonate anymore which is so unexpected after being on the same page for quite a long time.
I started to wonder, what happened and if it’s not growing apart, what is is?
While thinking about this and trying to get to the bottom of this, an interesting thought occurred to me, maybe the reason of my sudden feeling of rejection in relation to some people around me is that, as I grow older and older, my aspirations grow bigger and bigger. As I grow day by day I relize more and more that life is so full of opportunities and I see no reason in limiting myself, while some people around me choose one or two things to obsess over and limit themselves, as well as our conversations, our conversations go as far as those two things they choose for themselves. By limiting themselves, they also limit our relationship and subjects to debate. So after a couple of months you get sick of having the same topics, having the same conversations over and over again and get the feeling of being trapped in this relationship. Because while you want to try and learn more and more, while you want to do as much as your life gives you, they choose to limit themselves and because of that you feel like getting away from that friendship, that relationship being the only thing remaining that has any kind of limit.
So why do we limit ourselves, exactly when we shouldn’t?
We are comfortable, afraid, anxious, lazy. It’s easier to limit yourself to one or two things you know well, you do well, rather than experience a new thing that you don’t know in which way it will go. But by ‘playing safe’ you are actually not playing at all, you are just keeping yourself away from all the things you could do and be good at. It’s not easy to throw yourself into new things or find things you like, but there are so so many that it would actually be hard even for the pickiest person to not find at least one more thing they will be good at or like doing, but than we encounter the next stop fear. Two of my favorite quotes about fear and regret are
1.Better regret what you did, rather that what you did not. (I can’t remember who said this one but the credits go to them)
and the second one is
2. What are you afraid of losing, when nothing in the world actually belongs to you? by Marcus Aurelius.
If you find yourself in the position of fear or limitation sit down for a bit and think about these two, and if you’re like me, in the position of feeling rejection in relation to people surrounding you, I hope my little realization and verbalization about this feeling and sudden change will bring you a bit of light in your relationships.
What you do from now on, is hard to say, I myself still work on figuring it out, but in the meantime, you can subscribe to my substrack and come tell me about your journey or just follow mine.
When you spend time with two people that are doing something that don’t serve them right, you’ll become the third, but if you surround yourself with people that do things that serve them right, you will be encouraged to do more and more, remember that and don’t. be. afraid. you are not alone.
Thank you for reading and for being here
-love always, e.t