About two and a half month ago after a few weeks on the waiting list, I borrowed a book from the local library: “Maybe you should talk to someone” by Lori Gottlieb.
I enjoyed the back and forth between personal insights and the case-study-like anecdotes from her work as an L.A.-based psychotherapist.
As life has it, I didn’t finish the book in the two weeks that I was given. Others were waiting for the book, and I had to give it back.
I put my name on the waiting list again and waited until I could borrow it a second time. When I eventually, got it back again, the following two weeks passed so quickly and I didn’t manage to finish it again.
Clearly, my reading habit was not very upbeat. What should I do? Sign up a third time? What a ridiculous thought, right? But I did sign up again because I actually wanted to finish reading it.
Eventually I got the book again and after extending the rental by another two weeks online – since there was none waiting for it anymore – I finally finished reading it last weekend.
To be honest, I felt pretty ridiculous borrowing it so many times. I was thinking: what might “they” think and “this is not the normal way” to do it.
But then, I thought that I was being ridiculous towards myself. The self-imposed peer pressure was about to influence the outcome of what I wanted to do. I was about to sacrifice a goal that meant something to me for the sake of some imaginary conformity. Instead of comparing myself with “best practice”, I accepted doing it “my way”.
Next time you want to do something, maybe you want to check in to find out how much something means to you and then give yourself a helping hand to accomplish it “your way”.
Photo by Rommel Davila
