Earlier this year, I mentioned that I was going to be intentional about my actions, and literally every aspect of my life through the year - what I internalized, and what I gave out. Fast forward to sometime last month, I found out that I hadn’t been meeting up with that goal, or rather, I deviated from working towards it entirely.
There’s this lady I had been following across a particular social media platform. Her views and opinions were intellectual, and they mostly revolved around a particular topic I wanted to associate myself with. Many of the things she said, aligned with who I wanted to be, so following her seemed like the only right thing to do. But soon enough, she began deviating from why I followed her. She constantly preached on why humans did not deserve niceness, and how her followers should leech on others before excelling in their fields.
It took me a while to notice how we were deviating from what brought us there. Why? Because she integrated toxicity into her teachings, it appeared she was making sense. Making it all seem like toxicity was the only way for people to thrive. As soon as the toxicity became glaring, I expunged myself from her content, unfollowed her and began working back on my algorithm.
It is in situations like these, that you realize how easy it is, to walk away from our goals, than to walk towards them. We want a change for ourselves, we want to achieve new heights but when distraction is wrapped in a cloak, with the same build as that of your goals, how quickly can we spot a difference? How quick are we to pick out what is supposed to be ours, from the things that seem like ours? How easy it is, to run back and become, the exact same thing we’re running away from.
This is something that has happened to me over the years. Everytime I prepare to embrace change, to transform myself, I find myself distracted. Most times, I can’t even pinpoint the root cause of my inability to achieve, because the distractions were integrated into my success routines. Ergo, increasing my possibility of not achieving.
Countless times, we are advised against careless digestion of social media’s contents, and I’ve always had that in the recess of my mind while scrolling. I didn’t even realize the toxicity laced in her opinions early enough till it became so glaring that literally everything she talked about now revolved round the same topic she talked about decentering earlier. The irony!
We take steps to change ourselves, to become who we want to be but when we are too comfortable with our road to change, distractions find their way in. To our dismay, we’re too comfortable to notice when it sets in. That’s where intentionality comes in. Being intentional about your transformation process, constantly keeping track of your progress and your lapses, gives you a better standpoint in achieving your goals.
As minimalists, intentionality is a core aspect of us, seeing how it helps in tolerating the excesses that oftentimes, don’t seem like it. Being intentional saved me more months of digesting the wrong information, and that’s one aspect of my life, embracing minimalism has once again transformed.
Thanks for reading.
Images are mine.