Accept the Fluster: Change, Time Wisely Spent, and Staying Strong
“The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.”
—Elizabeth Bishop, “One Art”
Does anyone else leave a therapy session drenched in sweat? Every time I leave my therapist’s office, I have almost always sweat through my shirt. In the colder months I’m lucky that a coat or sweater is waiting for me on a hook in the waiting room to quickly cover the wet marks on my shirt, but in the warmer months, I’m screwed. But I try to no longer be self-conscious about it. I walk down to the parking lot afterward thinking, “Yep! I sweat through my shirt! I just came from therapy! Sitting on a couch and allowing and/or forcing myself to feel vulnerable and tell a professional every thought in my head makes me sweat like a pig! Have a nice day!”
Being vulnerable is hard, and at least for me, it still isn’t easy to be vulnerable even when you’re allowing yourself to be. That’s why even when I feel completely and totally at ease sitting and chatting with my therapist for an hour, clearly my body feels differently and that’s why I almost always leave drenched in sweat regardless of what was discussed. Being vulnerable is hard. Feelings are hard. Confronting yourself and your bullshit is hard, and it’s exhausting. It’s because we live in a world that not only generally discourages feelings and talking about them, but also a world that demands that we be strong. I understand why everyone wants us to be strong. They just want to help and be supportive and remind us that, underneath it all, we are strong enough to get through whatever we are going through. But it still feels like we are forced to jump straight into being strong when things are going wrong, even when we aren’t ready to, which simultaneously invalidates the unpleasantness we are feeling. Being strong comes in everyone’s own time. You can’t be strong until you and only you feel ready. You can’t be strong for anyone else but yourself. Being strong is created for you, by you. The same goes for time spent wisely.
I want you to ask yourself something: who were you before the world started telling you that you weren’t enough? Who were you before you started feeling like not enough? Can you go back to that person? Do they still exist somewhere? Now ask yourself, what if this were enough? The answer to some of these questions may very well be no. We can’t always go back to the people we used to be. They do still exist, but they exist in the past. To reiterate an infamous cliché from Clint Eastwood in The Bridges of Madison County, “Most people are afraid of change, but if you look at it like something you can always count on, then it can be of comfort. There’s not many things you can really count on.” Definitely a cliché, but also definitely very true. Change is one of the only things we can count on, since there truly aren’t many things we can really count on. Change is just as much inevitable as it is reliable. We can’t stay in one stage as one being for the remainder of time, no matter how hard we want it or wish it to be true. But that doesn’t mean we can’t think back to who we used to be and try to use that to help us in the present. That’s the key to figuring out not only who we were, but who we are going to be.
Often times, I find we are trying our best to be strong for someone else other than ourselves. We are trying to be strong because a loved one told us to be. We are trying to be strong so that people don’t start looking at us differently and think we are weak. We are trying to be strong so that we can continue to please other people as we always have. But at the end of the day, being strong is created for you, by you—nobody else. We can internalize the negative opinions of others, but who we are and what we are doing is left up to us. Nobody else can be you, no matter how hard they try to assume control. It’s up to you. You’re in the driver seat, even when it might feel like you’re not. Just like being strong, spending your time “wisely” is created for you, by you. Chances are we’ve all felt anxious about not doing something productive when we should be, or felt anxious about not spending our time as wisely as we could be. But who defines time wisely spent? Who defines whether we are doing enough? Who defines if we are enough? When we are young, adults try their hardest to gently push us in the right direction. Sometimes they aren’t even gentle; they may push with force, but it’s all so that you can one day be strong enough to figure these things out on your own. Adulthood is not something that has one set definition, but I like to think it means making your own decisions and figuring things out for yourself. So when you’ve reached the status of adult, and you still find yourself going out of your way to try to please people other than yourself, isn’t that a problem?
What if this were enough? What if who you are in this very moment was enough? If the answer to these questions is no, then you know it’s time for a change. And that’s okay! Change is a thing you can count on. You can stand by your past decisions even if they took you to a present where you don’t belong anymore. In fact, change is so inevitable that we change and grow every minute of every day; little by little, bit by bit, just as Alice in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland suggests when she says, “It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.” It’s only because we’re so used to dismissing these little changes and growths that they are not always something we can recognize about ourselves until a significant amount of time later. It’s okay to need a change. It’s okay to make a change for nobody else other than yourself. It’s okay to ignore whether a change is practical or convenient if the change is for the sake of your mental health. Nothing is worth compromising that. Nothing is worth the time spent trying to convince yourself that you can remain as you are when you are unhappy. Maybe it will be easier for you to be strong, for yourself, if you make a change so that you are no longer unhappy. The change doesn’t have to be physical, either. You can make a change that may seem invisible but real nonetheless. You can change your perceptions, you can change your thoughts, and you can change your outlook. I know changing something about yourself has come to have a bit of a negative connotation, since it may imply that you’ve chosen to chop off all your hair instead of learning to love yourself or solve your internal problems. But you can be trying your best to love yourself and still find yourself needing a change. You can do both. We can’t learn to grow as people if we remain stuck as we are. We need changes to face new challenges and to continue figuring out who we are. It’s vital, it’s necessary, and it’s okay.
I want us to accept the fluster. Accept the fluster of time not spent “wisely,” of time spent not feeling strong, of the hour badly spent. Accept the fluster of feeling like a mess and not feeling like enough. Accept the fluster of losing things. Accept the fluster of arriving late somewhere because life got in the way. Accept the fluster of failure. Accept the fluster of the inevitability of change, and the necessity of change. Accept the fluster of not being perfect, and accept the fluster of feeling anxious. Accept the fluster of sweating through your shirt during therapy. Stop fighting the fluster, and try to accept it.
“I have to kind of convince myself that I am deserving of being the person that I’ve always wanted to be. Even now as a grown-up, I still have to fake that confidence sometimes.”
—Troye Sivan
“There’s little in taking or giving,
There’s little in water or wine;
This living, this living, this living
Was never a project of mine.
Oh, hard the struggle, and sparse is
The gain of one at the top,
For art is a form of catharsis,
And love is a permanent flop,
And work is the province of cattle,
And rest’s for a clam in a shell,
So I’m thinking of throwing the battle—
Would you kindly direct me to hell?”
—Dorothy Parker, “Coda”
(Recommended listening for this essay: “Younger Now” by Miley Cyrus, “Locked Away” by R. City & Adam Levine, and “All We Know” by Alessia Cara)
Follow It's Not That Deep on Instagram — @areyouthereanxiety — and listen to my playlist of mental health songs on Spotify and Apple Music
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.”
—Elizabeth Bishop, “One Art”
Does anyone else leave a therapy session drenched in sweat? Every time I leave my therapist’s office, I have almost always sweat through my shirt. In the colder months I’m lucky that a coat or sweater is waiting for me on a hook in the waiting room to quickly cover the wet marks on my shirt, but in the warmer months, I’m screwed. But I try to no longer be self-conscious about it. I walk down to the parking lot afterward thinking, “Yep! I sweat through my shirt! I just came from therapy! Sitting on a couch and allowing and/or forcing myself to feel vulnerable and tell a professional every thought in my head makes me sweat like a pig! Have a nice day!”
Being vulnerable is hard, and at least for me, it still isn’t easy to be vulnerable even when you’re allowing yourself to be. That’s why even when I feel completely and totally at ease sitting and chatting with my therapist for an hour, clearly my body feels differently and that’s why I almost always leave drenched in sweat regardless of what was discussed. Being vulnerable is hard. Feelings are hard. Confronting yourself and your bullshit is hard, and it’s exhausting. It’s because we live in a world that not only generally discourages feelings and talking about them, but also a world that demands that we be strong. I understand why everyone wants us to be strong. They just want to help and be supportive and remind us that, underneath it all, we are strong enough to get through whatever we are going through. But it still feels like we are forced to jump straight into being strong when things are going wrong, even when we aren’t ready to, which simultaneously invalidates the unpleasantness we are feeling. Being strong comes in everyone’s own time. You can’t be strong until you and only you feel ready. You can’t be strong for anyone else but yourself. Being strong is created for you, by you. The same goes for time spent wisely.
I want you to ask yourself something: who were you before the world started telling you that you weren’t enough? Who were you before you started feeling like not enough? Can you go back to that person? Do they still exist somewhere? Now ask yourself, what if this were enough? The answer to some of these questions may very well be no. We can’t always go back to the people we used to be. They do still exist, but they exist in the past. To reiterate an infamous cliché from Clint Eastwood in The Bridges of Madison County, “Most people are afraid of change, but if you look at it like something you can always count on, then it can be of comfort. There’s not many things you can really count on.” Definitely a cliché, but also definitely very true. Change is one of the only things we can count on, since there truly aren’t many things we can really count on. Change is just as much inevitable as it is reliable. We can’t stay in one stage as one being for the remainder of time, no matter how hard we want it or wish it to be true. But that doesn’t mean we can’t think back to who we used to be and try to use that to help us in the present. That’s the key to figuring out not only who we were, but who we are going to be.
Often times, I find we are trying our best to be strong for someone else other than ourselves. We are trying to be strong because a loved one told us to be. We are trying to be strong so that people don’t start looking at us differently and think we are weak. We are trying to be strong so that we can continue to please other people as we always have. But at the end of the day, being strong is created for you, by you—nobody else. We can internalize the negative opinions of others, but who we are and what we are doing is left up to us. Nobody else can be you, no matter how hard they try to assume control. It’s up to you. You’re in the driver seat, even when it might feel like you’re not. Just like being strong, spending your time “wisely” is created for you, by you. Chances are we’ve all felt anxious about not doing something productive when we should be, or felt anxious about not spending our time as wisely as we could be. But who defines time wisely spent? Who defines whether we are doing enough? Who defines if we are enough? When we are young, adults try their hardest to gently push us in the right direction. Sometimes they aren’t even gentle; they may push with force, but it’s all so that you can one day be strong enough to figure these things out on your own. Adulthood is not something that has one set definition, but I like to think it means making your own decisions and figuring things out for yourself. So when you’ve reached the status of adult, and you still find yourself going out of your way to try to please people other than yourself, isn’t that a problem?
What if this were enough? What if who you are in this very moment was enough? If the answer to these questions is no, then you know it’s time for a change. And that’s okay! Change is a thing you can count on. You can stand by your past decisions even if they took you to a present where you don’t belong anymore. In fact, change is so inevitable that we change and grow every minute of every day; little by little, bit by bit, just as Alice in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland suggests when she says, “It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.” It’s only because we’re so used to dismissing these little changes and growths that they are not always something we can recognize about ourselves until a significant amount of time later. It’s okay to need a change. It’s okay to make a change for nobody else other than yourself. It’s okay to ignore whether a change is practical or convenient if the change is for the sake of your mental health. Nothing is worth compromising that. Nothing is worth the time spent trying to convince yourself that you can remain as you are when you are unhappy. Maybe it will be easier for you to be strong, for yourself, if you make a change so that you are no longer unhappy. The change doesn’t have to be physical, either. You can make a change that may seem invisible but real nonetheless. You can change your perceptions, you can change your thoughts, and you can change your outlook. I know changing something about yourself has come to have a bit of a negative connotation, since it may imply that you’ve chosen to chop off all your hair instead of learning to love yourself or solve your internal problems. But you can be trying your best to love yourself and still find yourself needing a change. You can do both. We can’t learn to grow as people if we remain stuck as we are. We need changes to face new challenges and to continue figuring out who we are. It’s vital, it’s necessary, and it’s okay.
I want us to accept the fluster. Accept the fluster of time not spent “wisely,” of time spent not feeling strong, of the hour badly spent. Accept the fluster of feeling like a mess and not feeling like enough. Accept the fluster of losing things. Accept the fluster of arriving late somewhere because life got in the way. Accept the fluster of failure. Accept the fluster of the inevitability of change, and the necessity of change. Accept the fluster of not being perfect, and accept the fluster of feeling anxious. Accept the fluster of sweating through your shirt during therapy. Stop fighting the fluster, and try to accept it.
“I have to kind of convince myself that I am deserving of being the person that I’ve always wanted to be. Even now as a grown-up, I still have to fake that confidence sometimes.”
—Troye Sivan
“There’s little in taking or giving,
There’s little in water or wine;
This living, this living, this living
Was never a project of mine.
Oh, hard the struggle, and sparse is
The gain of one at the top,
For art is a form of catharsis,
And love is a permanent flop,
And work is the province of cattle,
And rest’s for a clam in a shell,
So I’m thinking of throwing the battle—
Would you kindly direct me to hell?”
—Dorothy Parker, “Coda”
(Recommended listening for this essay: “Younger Now” by Miley Cyrus, “Locked Away” by R. City & Adam Levine, and “All We Know” by Alessia Cara)
Follow It's Not That Deep on Instagram — @areyouthereanxiety — and listen to my playlist of mental health songs on Spotify and Apple Music
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