365 Day Mood Project

Bruh. I don’t know what end is up honestly. Emotionally, I am wrung out.

And it’s my fault.

Why?

Boundaries, babe. Mine are SLIPPING.

I won’t lie to you, this is a bit of a cycle for me. I forget my own ability to say “no”. Over the last three days, I’ve overextended myself. Occassionally I do this, but not to worry, we can always course correct.

So today, instead of telling you everything that’s been going on, I will deliver some manifestos that always bring me back to what I feel is important. My thought is, if I put this somewhere permanent, it’s always there for me to come back to.

ON BOUNDARIES

1. Boundaries are for you, not another person.

If you say “hey, I won’t accept this” and somebody violates them and continues to violate them, and you go “HEY START LISTENING TO MY BOUNDARIES!” without ever stepping back? You actually don’t have boundaries. Boundaries are the line you draw with yourself before you step back. It’s a promise to yourself to take care of you, even if it’s uncomfortable.

2. Boundaries are not inflexible.

By this point, I think we know how I feel about rules. I view them more as guidelines. Sometimes, your boundary becomes more of a wall i.e. “I don’t want anyone staying in my house”. You can pick and choose when to enforce them.

ON FRIENDSHIPS

1. You should have standards for friendship as much as any other relationship.

I talk about energy a lot. When you’re depressed, you don’t have a lot of it. If every time you are around a person, you feel as though you’re drained, or you’re always the one making plans, always the one pouring in energy and getting none in return? While we’re not keeping score in a transactional way, the best friendships are where people pour into each other. If you’re pouring from an empty cup into an endless well? That’s a problem.

2. If you are only a friend when it’s convenient, you’re not a friend.

Not to be confused with the idea that you should always, endlessly give, because you shouldn’t. However, being inconvenienced and showing up anyway is part of caring about another human being.

German philosopher Schopenhauer once wrote about something called the hedgehog’s dilemma, and I think about this all the time in regard to any relationship.

I’ll paraphrase, but the metaphor was that in the cold, hedgehogs cuddle together to prevent freezing to death in cold weather. However, because of their quills, the closer they got to each other, the more they felt the effects of each other’s quills. The hedgehogs find the perfect distance from each other to maintain warmth but prevent getting poked in the butt.

Now I think Schopenhauer’s point was more about manners in general, meaning that manners are the necessary distance between human beings from metaphorically poking each other with our worst traits in society. That said, I think the metaphor describes what I’m talking about here. To maintain warmth and connection, you’re gonna have to endure some pokes. But you don’t have to skewer yourself. It’s up to you to find the distance that’s right.

The world is impossible, or at least incredibly difficult, to navigate alone. It’s important to understand that ANY relationship is not easy, it’s not always about you, and it’s not always convenient. But that goes both ways. If you do friendship right, you’ll find people who don’t mind enduring your own pokes of inconvenience to make sure you’re warm and safe.

3. Confrontation is healthy.

People have weird thoughts about confrontation. It doesn’t have to be a knock down screaming match. You also don’t have to say everything perfectly. IF you’re around people who REALLY care for you, you don’t have to phrase everything perfectly, time everything perfectly, or shove all of your feelings down.

Say what you need to say if it’s a thing that weighs on you. If you can’t seem to let a behavior or pattern go? You have to talk about it.

Our culture is very “disposable”. The bags your fruit comes in are designed to be tossed away. The electronics we make are designed only to last a few years before the newest model comes out. Every 30 days, there’s a new trend that encourages us to throw out our whole wardrobe and start over. In my opinion, this has bled into our relationships. There’s always another boyfriend, girlfriend, wife, husband, friend, whatever. Why work on anything when you can just walk away and replace?

I refuse to treat people as disposable when our largest institutions already do enough of that for the rest of us. Which means, you have to try. You have to say when something is wrong. You have to listen to someone’s perspective. You also can’t expect someone to always “just know” something either.

My barometer for when to leave is this: if it’s a pattern that continues, and they make no improvement, and they say one thing and continue on without making a change? That’s when you walk away.

4. In any relationship, always remember what is yours and what is not yours.

Particularly for people who grew up in tumultuous households, closeness always brings the temptation to shoulder someone else’s problems. To ease their emotional burdens in the sort of clairvoyant way only children who grew up that way can, long before they run over your friend.

What I’ve come to learn is that is actually a disservice to people. It indicates you don’t trust them to handle things. It indicates that you don’t trust them to ask for help if they need it. It also robs people of the opportunity to learn from their own mistakes and may keep them in patterns longer.

Sometimes, you have to pull back.

5. You don’t have to like everyone, and not everyone has to be your best friend.

There are people in this world who aren’t evil. They’re fun to be around. There’s nothing WRONG with them, necessarily. But frankly? They’re bad friends. They don’t show up to the important stuff. They show up when it’s convenient. They don’t tell you when something is bothering them.

You don’t have to HATE them for this. You don’t have to banish them from your world for this. You also don’t have to pour energy into maintaining that relationship. This goes for people you’ve known for a long time too. Some friendships don’t have to last forever to be meaningful.

Just know that it might be worth conserving your energy for the people who pour back into you.

There you have it, my manifesto. My list of things that I deeply believe, but sometimes forget. Maybe you’ll find something here that helps.

Keep it pushing. Love you, mean it.