Big Picture

It's funny how you can love a song and then at some point in your life when you're going through something, the lyrics just crystallise into their true meaning. That's how I feel about Big Picture right now.

But it's good that I've now been through this - unless if you're really fortunate, we will all be treated badly by someone that we care about at some point. I already count myself lucky because the person who treated me badly was not my dad, or my mum, or the person I've chosen to be my soulmate and partner for life - because then it would've really threatened the foundations of my identity.

As it turns out, I'm very lucky because I had amazing role models in my life who taught me early on what it really means to love and care about someone and because of that, I know what's owed to me, and I know what I owe to others when I choose to care and love them.

I feel sorry for people who are less fortunate than I, who will spend a lifetime hurting the people they love and hurting themselves as well.

But even though I've managed to move on relatively scar-free (partly because this relationship was relatively inconsequential), it still took me a good chunk of time to do that (partly because I couldn't immediately and completely remove myself from this person).

People are always bewildered by how long people stay in abusive, toxic or even just painful relationships. And while I knew in a textbook way what the answer was, now that I have a little experience, I can say for sure that love doesn't work that way. When you really love someone, you give them chances, because you are loyal and committed and because you love them unconditionally and because they have been there for you in the past. That's why it takes many, many bad things before people give up on the person they love.

Walking away from any toxic relationship takes a lot of courage. It demands perspective i.e. that you're able to see the relationship for what it really is even while you're still in it and being hurt by it - which is a pretty big ask. It demands a lot of self-belief - you need to know what a loving relationship is and know that this person isn't giving you that (and will probably never), and you need to have a sense of self-worth and self-respect and know that you are a thousand times better than this person who does not deserve you.

It demands wisdom - sometimes the best thing to do for someone (if you are still convinced that you love them) is to let them go, because they need to face their own demons alone if they're ever going to become a better person (even if that chance is small). They need to stop leaning on others and using them to avoid the problems in their life.

All this is incredibly difficult when you're in an emotionally vulnerable state. You are asking someone to stand up for up for themselves when someone else (whose opinion they cared about deeply) has consistently made them feel like nothing. It is one of the most heroic things a person can do - which is why I look up to these people and respect their strength because it is the kind of strength that I want.

None of this stuff about driven, ambitious, motivated people who are global leaders with loud voices and who give their time to causes. If you want to be a strong person and change other peoples' lives, and if you want to do something meaningful with your life (or live a life with meaning), love someone properly. And if you can, stand up for yourself.

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I'm feeling very inspired today! I had a really nice breakfast at Hardware Societe and saw Pentatonix last night! Pentatonix has been a youtube staple for a significant part of my life (and theirs I guess, since they only formed in 2011), and I got really excited when they did a montage of their songs from the Sing Off.

The breakfast itself was amazing (baked eggs with smashed peas), the company was better though. I have a few things I need to sort out in my life (like how to make friends again), but for the most part I'm pretty whole. And I've been feeling much, much better since I left work. As I've been telling Brendan - the devil is off my shoulder! I mean, I knew the Angel was spot on all along, but the Devil put a lot of pressure on me to forgive someone (and give them chances! eugh) when actually the best thing was to just kick them out of my life.

Again though, that requires a lot of self-belief because you really need to know who you are. So I'm glad I spent a lot of my six years at uni (six!!! horror) investing in myself to figure that out so that I'd have a better chance of weathering crises like these. I'm glad that I didn't put pressure on myself to pick a career path prematurely or lock myself into some kind of conventional life course, even though it meant I had to get used to a lot of uncertainty and feeling lost. When others were prioritising their careers to kickstart their adult life, I was prioritising my personal wellbeing and my friendships (which is maybe why I have so many great friends today!).

I realise now that not everyone had the same experience. If it wasn't clear to me before, it was definitely clear once I started my relationship with Brendan that you really do need a strong sense of self before you can be in an intimate relationship. Your first and most important relationship is your relationship with yourself. I know that sounds really cheesy, and very 'thank u next' (🎵🎶Plus, I met someone else...We havin' better discussions...this one gon' last...'Cause her name is Ari🎵🎶) but I can't stress how important it is. Careers can fail and so can relationships, but if you've worked on yourself before so that you have a strong sense of identity separate from those things then they can never destroy you. They'll hurt you, but they won't break you.

Anyway, if you have appetite for more reading like this I suggest this article from Medium. The author talks about detachment but what she really means is having a sense of self separate from all the things I just talked about, so that when those things that aren't entirely within your control go wrong, you can learn to let go.

When I think back over the past year, I remember twice almost leaving my job (one where I got an interview for essentially what would've been a promotion but at a different department and one where I interviewed and got the role but it was at level), and I almost regret not leaving then. But third time lucky - when I decided to leave and go back to full-time study in November last year, I followed through! Sure, I got a promotion out of staying in my job, but in hindsight it's really a 50/50 call on whether it was worth it. So I know it's really hard to let go of things in your life that seem important at the time, and of course it turned out that there was an even bigger thing that I had to learn to let go of. But I'm glad that these things didn't ruin me in the end. I just hope that in the future I have a better way of being really passionate about things while also maintaining a level of zen and knowing when to quit.