Testing your limits beyond your Values & Principles
Hello Reading friend, how was the month of May for you?
I hope like me you tried to have a mostly Merry and liberated month of MAY by;
- Being M
- Being grateful for all Achievements, however small.
- Loving Yourself
Some days were easier to follow through and others were harder like the last two days of the month when I got frustrated by the services at a certain Government entity. It just hit me that sometimes following the process doesn’t offer the best results. Wondering what, I submitted documents that would ideally take me an hour to work on physically through an online portal and it took me a whole week to get the work done. I was frustrated to the bone, shared my frustration with the call center attendants who kept hanging up on me until I had to go back to the drawing board and do a “gamba nogu”!
So, yeah on some days I didn’t love myself enough- I let frustrations dull my love.
Moving on, to today’s subject, I don’t know if it is because of my past experiences but in pursuit of living fully; I tested my limits.
What testing your limits looks like
By Testing my limits, I mean trying something that I have not done before, and I would ideally not do in the last 30 + years of my existence because of my upbringing. When we were younger, we always joked that whatever we did not do at campus we shall probably do in our adult life when our agemates have stopped doing those things.
The psychologists like to call it “fixation” and others occasionally refer to it as mid-life crisis. I like to believe that it is Identity Crisis.
As the years go by, I realize that there is no such thing as fixation or midlife crisis because you will find some people doing the same things as they were doing at university even twenty years later.
Midlife Crisis, Fixation, or Identity Crisis? What is it exactly?
What in fact happens is that as a person you continue to evolve due to life’s experiences both positive and negative. As a result, you begin to make certain choices either to justify your actions or to make yourself feel better. Sometimes it might be just to see what happens after that with the confidence that you have already experienced the worst consequences. Other times, it is that you are just trying to re-discover yourself but again this can only be because of your past experiences. It could also be a moment of identity crisis. A moment where for a minute you forget how valuable you are.
So, for me to share with you from a place of experience, I tested my limits by doing something I wouldn’t ideally do.I try to be a loyal and honest friend so ultimately I tend to expect the same from other people in my life.
When I tested my limits, I didn’t do it with the intention to be disloyal but now that the moment is done, I am stripping myself of the shame and sharing what I learned after my moment of disloyalty. I am not exactly proud of it, but I am grateful for the experience and revelation.
Without going into details, I hope you know that every experience gives us an opportunity to self-introspect, evaluate, and make new choices for the next experience. You choose how to live the next day.
Please note that no matter how spiritual, religious, or godly you and I may be; we are still human leading a human experience which includes testing your limit and it is normal to fall short. What counts is what you do after you fall short. The choice that you make thereafter.
Conclusion
My observation in the process was that if anything you do doesn’t feel good or fulfill you then it is not worth it. It is important that after that moment we get back to a place of loyalty and not only forgive ourselves but commit to get back on track.
We should go back to the drawing board and remind ourselves of what our values are, who we are and what we stand for individually. It goes without saying that as you re-align, you need to forgive yourself and serve others by guiding or re-directing them to do the right thing too. Doing the right thing is a choice that we have to make every day and if your choice doesn’t give you peace, then it is not the right thing. Go back and re-evaluate.
You must be wondering what did. I will save you the detail but encourage you to join me, in seeking grace and committing to do better in not only our dealings but our relationships too.
Remember, the change you are looking for starts with YOU.
I trust this month has been exciting for you, wishing you more blessings and exciting days in the next month.
Hope & Faith,
F.I.R.M