sarahwilliamsandco

Today, instead of sleeping in or hanging around watching Netflix, I took myself to an exhibition at Liverpool Central Library. Since October they’ve been having a History of Magic exhibit around the country’s libraries to celebrate twenty years since the publication of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. The one in Liverpool ends this weekend. I’ve been meaning to go for weeks but isn’t that just what we always do? Put things off til they’ve passed or we’ve lost interest?

I think we also don’t do things because we think we can’t do them alone. But that mentality doesn’t serve us. We end up missing out on our own life because our schedule didn’t match up with our mates. When what’s really stopping you from going somewhere yourself? Societal norms and pressures? Your shyness? Or your complete inability to be alone with your own thoughts for a few hours?

Whatever it is, I think we need to do something about it. When I was travelling in Berlin last summer I’d been casually eating at cafes or grabbing snacks from shops because that was more comfortable. Somehow a cafe seemed less scary and awkward than a full blown restaurant. But then I figured I just needed to get over myself so I took myself to a Vietnamese vegan restaurant and it was delicious. And you know what? It wasn’t weird either. People don’t care what you’re doing because they’re living their own lives.

And that’s my message for you. Nobody cares. So you’ve got to stop caring. You can have self-care, sure, cos that’s what all these posts are about. But you can’t care about thoughts and actions you can’t control. So stop waiting for your mate or your brother or your girlfriend and just go and do something you want to do. Take yourself on a date, if that’s what you wanna call it. But really it’s just called living.

Go to the cinema, go on a walk, travel to a new city, just go the corner shop. Just do it alone. Because you should be able to spend time with yourself. You need to. And you never know what you’ll find. Maybe you’ll discover a new album as you travel on the train, or maybe you’ll have a novel idea as you walk through the museum, or maybe you’ll just have a random conversation with yourself in your head as you wait for the cinema to go dark. Either way, I think you’ll learn something. And we’re never done learning.

Dosage: For adults of eighteen and over I’d suggest at least once fortnightly.

Peace.

Knots – All The Luck In The World