This post is entirely from my perspective as it’s the only perspective I can provide on internal clutter.
Often I’ve muttered to myself “you are smart enough to know what to do, but dumb enough to not take action.” Where our focus goes our energy flows, or lack thereof.
I can bring this post in many directions, such as motivation is a poor master, but really I want to dive into the state of a lack of daily clarity. What I mean is, not having a specific identity, outcome, or goal attached to a day. Often work is the #1 focus in a day, and more often than not work fulfillments don’t fill our need for personal fulfillment. Accomplishing my checklist at work was often perceived as a relief more than a personal achievement. And tired from the day’s duties, social needs took precedent over long term growth and goals. Which is entirely predictable, long term goals remain as such if we do not break them down into real activities and incorporate them into our daily lives.
Without doing so, social fulfillment will always precede long term goals because it’s often external and it presents itself to us. It’s not perceived as work and it is always attainable if we put in the minimal effort.
This system can lead one to believe that they haven’t grown personally from the age of 23 when they dreamed of starting a venture of their own. Which is entirely not true. Just us as humans are very bad at keeping a running log of our achievements. But quickly ask us to summarize failures and we’ll have a story about the convo we should have had with our boss, the girl we should have asked out, or the time we let fear paralyze us and convince ourselves that staying put and ‘fitting in’ is okay for now.
And the main reason, I believe, that we can’t quickly recall and sum up our personal growth achievements is because we lack daily clarity. Instead of going into the day with a focus of what we need to achieve and let that dictate how the day shapes out, we run reverse course. Completing our obligations with work first and after socially with friends, often never leaving time for ourselves. There’s a myriad of apps and shows that can fill our void of being alone. But there’s nothing wrong with being alone, some of the greatest growth happens when it’s just you and the world.
Note about solo travel: backpacking South America you can stay in your bubble traveling solo too, as every hostel is filled with people speaking english and partying. Social fulfillment can easily take precedent if you want it too.
Something I’m learning on this trip is you have to put your self first with everything. What you want to accomplish in traveling takes the forefront and this is worth writing about. Simply changing scenery isn’t enough if we don’t change anything else about our lives. Digital distractions & a lack of clarity when traveling can mean you go and see a bunch of great things, but you weren’t really present and maybe didn’t learn a complete lesson like you should have.
Here in isolation, it’s much easier to gain daily clarity, to schedule time daily to work on self and instill a daily conversation and mindfulness practice dedicated to you.
People often say days in New York go by much quicker than anywhere else. Sometimes it is because people jam pack there days running to events. But more often people want to FEEL like they are perpetually busy and it validates their reasoning to stay in and watch TV or engage in other zero growth activities. Likely at the detriment of daily clarity.