Several weeks into 2019, it has taken me longer than normal to dedicate myself to something fully for the year. Long ago, I gave up resolutions. Instead, I chose to focus my energy on concepts or themes. I am not trying to give up anything or do more of something else. I am attempting to live in the moment and make the best of each one I am afforded. When it came to picking a theme for 2019, I was stuck and wasn’t finding motivation anywhere I looked. Then, out of nowhere, a couple of traumatic experiences in my professional and personal life occurred. Wading through their trickiness, it dawned on me, I will dedicate myself to detachment.
Now, detachment can mean aloof, distant, standoffish, uninterested, and much more. For me, it means something else entirely when properly applied. Living through difficult challenges at work and home made something abundantly clear to me; I am too emotionally involved in things I cannot change, have no desire changing, or have no wish to fully invest myself.
Every day at work, someone darkens my door with some juicy piece of gossip about decisions being made above us. They come to me, not for counsel, but for rage. They are building a hill and want me to die on it with them. Whether I agree or not is beside the point, the amount of emotional investment is. My bandwidth is short, and I am not naturally prone to anger. So, in these situations, I am choosing to detach and remove myself from the situation for my own emotional health.
Every once in a while, Brandon and I are faced with impossible decisions where there is only one clear path. We wrestle with choices, debate, and maybe even succumb to arguments, but then we end up making the obvious choice. Over the course of the next year, I want to practice detachment. I want to spend less time trying to win arguments and more time trying to invest in the relationship.
None of this will be easy for me. I am a person who loves to get involved and can drift from my lane from time to time. Still, the effort will be worth it. In the end, I think my mind, feelings, and self-worth will thank me.
Be good to each other,
-Nathan
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