The thing everyone wants
A Thought on Christmas
You see someone else’s pictures.
You observe the environment. Then, you hold up your reality to compare.
That’s the equation: Look, dissect, compare.
“Looks like fun. Looks relaxing. I’d love to be sipping a [your favorite beverage] on the beach somewhere.”
And from this side of the world, waking up to downpour by the ocean, it’s occurred to me,
“Look at everyone enjoying their Christmas season parties, driving past houses decked out in lights & hosting girls-nights wearing cute matchy pjs making gingerbread houses. That looks so fun.”
No complaints here. None whatsoever.
But that’s the thing about social media. The goal is to enable the feeling of lack. In order for you to keep coming back, it has to supply you with the things you don’t have.
I don’t have a house to host holiday parties and dinners.
I don’t have fuzzy blankets and a twinkling tree to sip hot cocoa by.
I don’t have my family near me.
I don’t have convenience and familiarity, or friends to pass the time with.
I don’t live in the same time-zone as everyone I know.
Again, these aren’t complaints. Simply the reality of the situation, and one that Instagram knows I am without (hence feeds me with Reels of games to play at a holiday party, friends poking fun at each other, and home-making activities). The life I want in the future, and one I don’t have at present.
On the other side of my feed, I get posts of visually captivating landscapes by established travel photographers & videographers, as well as nomadic influencers with steady streams of income from collabs and passion projects. A glimpse of a wholly opposite dream; one my current reality is more likely to reach, but still hasn’t achieved.
Why am I fanning this out?
I lay out my thoughts so they live outside of my head (my favorite way of making sense of my experiences).
This helps me separate the thoughts from my feelings, and those from my identity.
It gives me a chance to organize the things weighing on me; a chance to hear myself out and apply logic to emotion.
It offers me perspective, because sometimes what seems to be a huge issue is simply a misalignment of my words and my actions.
The 4th reason is currently a main one because I have a pattern of responding to myself in a stern, critical voice:
The stern voice says,
“You should be thankful for this opportunity. You shouldn’t focus on what you lack. Look at what you have; people would love to experience what you’re doing right now. All that stuff about not having a home or time with family and friends will happen later, stop thinking about that.”
I used to shut down at this, but I have taken up the practice of reacting to myself with a more understanding approach (when I give myself the time to reflect—circling back to why journaling has been the greatest form of self-care):
The empathetic voice says,
“It makes sense you’ve been thinking about your family during the holidays. You were taught, along with everyone else, that this time of year is to hold your loved ones close. You were taught that this season is for making memories with your people. Of course you’re thinking about home and family, because you’re not there with them.”
That’s true. It makes sense. Just because I miss my people doesn’t mean I’m ungrateful for the current experiences I’m having now. I can love being away and miss home at the same time.
It makes me wonder about my thought habits and how they influence my attitude,
“I would like to break from mindless scrolling and use my platform primarily to post. Otherwise, I’ll get caught being a consumer instead of a creator. When I become a consumer, that’s when I start feeling the lack. In order to pursue my goal of connecting with people through my passions, I need boundaries with who gets my attention and how they influence me.”
That’s a good observation. It gives me something I can take action on.
It removes me from identifying with the problem and enables me to focus on the next best steps I can take to achieve my goal.
Problem to opportunity, lack to abundance.
Concept vs Reality
When I imagined the holidays and all it entails, I definitely did not include the chaos that accompanies the season.
I didn’t think about how last Christmas went; how we had moved out of our studio apartment, had driven 30 hours from Colorado to Tennessee to Florida, moved out some stuff from Tennessee, and moved into our new space in central FL; how I had planned to transition to the Orlando location of the restaurant I worked at in CO, and how I couldn’t move forward because of the working conditions; how I lost my wallet in the middle of trying to change to my married name (and how someone found it in the apartment parking lot 2 days later); how attending Christmas parties was the last thing I needed because I was burnt out, struggling to land a job, exhausted from the moving process, and overwhelmed with the feeling of being an utter failure.
Yikes.
It’s over now. Ha. Thank God. That was not fun.
I would be happy to have much calmer Christmases.
On the opposite side of quiet nights, twinkling lights, and nostalgic Christmas movies, I come across another relatable sentiment as old as time itself:
Holidays are a sparkly, magical clusterfuuudge of pure chaos.
It’s busy. It’s expensive. You’ve got people pulling you in all directions. All the deadlines, with the 25th representing the final leg of this unending journey through the holidays; the day that shows for all the work you’ve put in to make this year’s festivities as seamless as possible, with as little meltdowns as possible.
Is there any way to escape the madness?
Can we, too, have not just one silent night, but all of them? Or how about, say, once a week? Is that reasonable?
Deep breath. I think it is possible.
Now, I hear the objections:
“Just wait til…”
“You don’t get it because...”
“You’ll see when you get to be my age!”
I know that there will always be something I won’t fully grasp, get, understand. If I let that reality run the show, I’d have zero spine voice. Been there, done that, still workin’ on it— so we’re moving on now.
I have accepted that they may all prove to be right and I’ll eat my words when I do “get it,” but I still believe I’m not wrong about the persistent longing for peace everyone has deep down.
I think no matter how extensive the to-do list is or how niche/complicated the problems are, our honesty about whether we believe we have the choice to make better memories—revealing our acceptance that only we are the initiators of our own joy—is the necessary bridge that connects us to that North Star.
What people want:
People desire peace. People desire to live in the present. People desire more good memories than bad.
We want moments that will make us laugh when we think about it 10 years later. We want clear hindsight abilities; to not question if we’re just romanticizing the event. We want to be able to say that the friends back then were true and that the family congregated out of love rather than obligation. We want the world to slow down just enough so we can hold our person close and share the moment together.
I think it can happen by chance. I also think those moments are more likely to happen if the time is made.
Maybe I can spare 5 minutes from the phone or couch and ask my partner to watch the sunset this once. Maybe prep some hot cocoa to share. And if they’re not available, maybe share it with a kiddo or pet or myself.
Just 5 minutes of nothing but the sky and me. Maybe that’s all it takes.
It doesn’t have to be one spectacular, inspiring event that moves me through great waves of gratitude and wonder like some hallmark movie.
What if what we’re searching for, what will satiate that need, is nothing more than the smallest fraction of time we use for other consumption-based activities?
What if the greatest gift we can give to ourselves—and others—takes 30 seconds to prep, 60 seconds to execute, and consists only of 3 words?
For those of you who read through this and felt moved to step outside for a brief moment, I encourage you to do just that!
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Wishing everyone a wonderful season. Thank you for reading.
See you in the next post! x