Resilience

Most of my life I believed I’m a late bloomer. And in many ways, when compared to some sort of standard, I indeed am: there is an abundance of things I got to do way later in life than most. I know now that it never mattered (still doesn’t) how quick, slow, hard or easy I find things in life. As long as I’m moving and changing, at my own pace, I’m doing it right. And so do you, fellow late bloomer, or you, slightly less familiar early bloomer.  

But I’ve recently realised that alongside being a late bloomer, there has always – or at least for the past decade – been a sphere of life in which I seemed to be right ahead of my peers. Emotional sensitivity, intuition and self-awareness were the things that – then and again – kept setting me aside. And ultimately getting me into endless trouble.  

Life is ambivalent

At the beginning of this year, I read a sentence that deeply resonated with me. It could be roughly translated into: maturity is an ability to bear the ambivalence. How very true! Because life itself is, always have been and is going to be, just that: ambivalent. There’s no bad without good, no easy without difficult, no happy without sad, no vice without virtue and so on – one does not exclude the other, only complements it. Emotional maturity is based on ambivalence too: lots of seemingly opposite emotions exist alongside each other, and it’s learning how to hold them together (rather than repress or defy them at all cost) that is the real game-changer.

In short: accepting life’s ambivalence has a potential to transform your life.

Self-awareness is the key

A while back, one of my best friends confessed that over the years I’ve become his inspiration and he hopes to arrive where I am now (mentally) one day. An older friend of mine once told me it fascinates him how well developed my radar for bullshitting seems to be. My flatmate thinks I got my shit together and my then-friend now-partner willingly admits that what drew him in was how sure of my own decisions and opinions I seemed to be. And even though being complemented like this still makes me uncomfortable, a part of me nods in agreement: yes, knowing yourself may be tough as fuck at times, but it does pay off.

It all boils down to self-awareness.

Transactions and investments

My friend once told me I’m cynical and cold, because I said that, to me, every relation is like a transaction. An investment you choose to make, just the currency is different than money.

To be fair, when I first thought about relationships in such a pragmatic way, it also took me aback. Transactions? Investments? How can anyone say that about human feelings and emotions?! And wasn’t I supposed to be a hopeless romantic? All dreamy and idealistic?

But the more I thought about it, the more clear it became. Believe it or not, one does not exclude the other, even though we’re taught to believe that’s the case: you can be a hopeless romantic who simultaneously is a cynical, pragmatic bitch. Hello, yes, that’s me.