Hey #088: Aren’t you tired of being reasonable all the time? I know I am.
An invitation for you to allow yourself to be unreasonable 🦋
“Don’t slack off.”
“Behave like an adult.”
“No need to take it easy.”
These are some of the many phrases that I say to myself to keep myself on the track of reasonability.
Being reasonable.
What does it mean?
It means using good judgment and therefore being fair and practical.
It sounds like such a “good” word. Right?
But I find it to be a tricky word.
I use it to motivate myself.
I use it to reprimand myself.
Overall, I use it to remind myself of my expectations that I have to fulfill.
I’ve figured that I do it quite frequently, if not all the time.
And just like that, a “good” word which is supposed to keep my judgment sound, becomes a burden for me to carry beyond the trail of my own expectations.
While carrying this burden, I forget the nature of my own reason. That is, to be imperfect.
I forget the nature of my human-ness. That is, to make mistakes.
So when I encounter my imperfection and my mistakes, I don’t find myself extending compassion towards self. Rather I find myself opening the floodgates of harsh criticism onto myself.
“Ashi, you had to be reasonable. How could you make that mistake?”
“You’re an adult, Ashi. You’ve to be fair and practical.”
Okay. Okay.
I’m an adult. But that doesn’t mean I can’t cut myself some slack from my expectations of being fair and practical all the time.
I can choose to make mistakes at times. And be okay with it.
I can choose to be impractical at times. And be okay with it.
I can choose to be unreasonable at times. And be okay with it.
Instead of holding myself accountable for the proper communication in my relationships every single time, I can choose to not communicate sometimes. And be okay with it.
Instead of expecting myself to eat right and exercise right all the time, I can eat unhealthy and not exercise sometimes. And be okay with it.
Instead of asking myself to be up and running for every career opportunity all the time, I can let some opportunities slide sometimes. And be okay with it.
I can be unreasonable.
I’m allowed to be.
No matter how compelling or enticing this idea sounds, my reasonability is still not excited about me being okay with my unreasonability.
Your reasonability might be showing the same not-okay-ness.
Do you know why that is?
Because unreasonability results in unpredictability. All the time.
And reasonability doesn’t sit well with unpredictability.
Our reasonability is accustomed to holding onto everything and keeping it all together, so that no behaviors of ours go out of the way to cause unpredictability.
But the thing is:
The more we let ourselves be unreasonable and make mistakes, the more we start coloring out of the lines.
The more we color out of the lines, the more we experience the world of unpredictability.
The more we experience the world of unpredictability, the more we learn to cultivate self-trust.
The more we cultivate self-trust, the more we refine our judgment to blindly rely or not rely on reasonability.
We discover:
What once used to be unreasonable, now becomes reasonable.
What once used to be reasonable, now becomes unreasonable.
That’s how we re-define reasonability for ourselves, which is the whole point of being unreasonable.
Having said all of this, I don’t mean to encourage you to use unreasonability as an excuse to avoid the discomfort of doing difficult things like communicating in relationships, eating and exercising well, focusing on your career, etc.
I only want you to step out of the whole paradigm of what’s reasonable and what’s not, so that you can re-evaluate YOUR definitions of reasonability for yourself.
And the first step of doing so is allowing yourself to be unreasonable.
So ask yourself:
Do I allow myself to be unreasonable at times?
I’d love to know your answer.
Hit reply if you’re reading this as an email. And use comments section if you’re reading this as a blog.
🦋
I’ll see you next Thursday,
Ashi
/Your unreasonably reasonable writer/
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So, I realised this thing on the edges of 20s that I'll always have inner child in me and more I embrace & enlive it the more easy and beautiful world becomes.
So, yes being unreasonable 🤟🏻🥂
Wonderfully written and explained step by step. It helped me with something I had been struggling with now.