Today, I thought I would write a post on one thought that has been stuck in my mind. Some of you would know, from my last post, that I have recently been the victim of a serious accident and thus, have been home far more than usual, recovering. So far, 2024 has been a year of transition for me: a new job, a new house, considerable advancements in my private life, a near-death experience and above all, extreme changes in my perspective on life.
At first, I have thought it was only a slight shift that would somehow return to “normal”. Nonetheless, I have since understood there was no such thing as “normal”, in life. There are rather periods which correspond to behaviours, thought patterns, and even lifestyles. As human beings, we may experience only one life, but we are within them experiencing various worlds. Most of us would think here of big life shifts that most people choose to go through: moving out of our parents’ house, starting university, graduating, getting married, becoming a parent. However, these are only a sample of all the changes we go through in our life – many others are just as important, but not as recurring among people.
The subtle unavoidable ubiquity of evolution
Please take a moment to think about the person you were five years ago. Really, take that moment to close your eyes and spend a little while picturing this person in your head. How were they? What did they think? What was their number one dream? Chances are this person has not so much to do with who you are today, the person sitting there, reading this blog post. You may even feel like this life has somehow been lived by someone else– this is far more usual than you think. Actually, it happens all the time, but so subtly that if we do not take time to reflect mindfully on those past years, we may even miss the clues and simply continue living, evolving.
Effortless evolution
Human beings evolve all the time– this is at least what I hope each of you is going through. There is actually not much comfort in staying exactly the same, as a feeling of lack naturally starts creeping in. However, evolving does not have to mean constantly searching for more. This is the lesson I have learnt this year. I used to think that evolving was part of human nature and on this, I was right. However, I also thought our role was to play an active part in the change– and I could not have been more wrong. Obviously, as main characters in our own story, we are active participants in the evolution. However, there is no effort to be made on our part for us to be active – this is natural, just like the simple act of breathing.
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Non-judgmental evolution
Also, and maybe on another, more subtle level, we do not have to evolve either forward or backward. For instance, at first when I saw the evolutions happening in my existence this year, I started judging them. Some were seemingly brining me “forward”, while others seemed to be bringing me “backward”. This is not true, at all. The truth is that we evolve in a way that is impossible to judge– we just evolve, period. At times in our life, we may be 100% invested in our career, enjoying a “girl-boss-like” mentality. At other times, we may be focusing on our marriage. There are also times in which we do not focus on actually anything, but more on enjoying reading books at home and testing all sorts of teas. There is no right or wrong evolution, there is only balanced ways to accept and accompany the, oh so human, act of transitioning from one version of ourselves to the next.
The English-speaking Frenchie 