Connecting intentionally

Today was one of those days where you wake up with a view of how your day was going to go but within the blink of an eye, everything is messed up. I had a test scheduled for today and a class, few hours after that. An hour before the test, it was cancelled. This meant I had to instantly reshuffle everything I had planned between the time for the test and the class after. I stayed back, cancelled the other plans already made and waited for my other class at a later hour.

During my free-time, I decided to look into my journey with growth so far. Self-assessment. This is something I enjoy doing, as someone who is always striving to be a better person for herself and to those around her. With it, I realize my shortcomings, how far I've come and how far I still need to go to achieve that which it is I want to achieve. In that short moment of journeying into my past actions, I realized one thing. I hadn't been giving back as much as I've been receiving.

During the new year, I made a choice to put myself first in whatever situation I found myself but today, I realized that I wasn't even putting myself first in anything. I was only justifying selfishness and parading it as self-love. Reflecting on my current and past relationships opened my eyes to see that.

There's this friend I have in school. She's someone I enjoy befriending but I realized that I had been doing things wrongly for a while now. We didn't have issues or any fallouts. She might not have even noticed that I wasn't putting as much effort into our friendship as she has been. But I did, today. For instance, if I attended classes earlier than she did, I would find a seat for myself alone but if she gets to class before me, she'll reserve seats for two. She'd apologizes with gifts the moment she realizes she overreacted to situations that we normally would have laughed over. Yes, I'd buy her things when we were together and I wanted to buy mine. I'll compliment her looks every now and then. But that does not dispute the fact that I'd been under-reciprocating. As soon as I realized it, I knew I had to make amends and do better in my relationship with people around me.

Connection to me, is knowing the things I need and surrounding myself with them. Connection to me, is making the best out of things I'm willing to surround myself with. Connection is me making efforts in all ways possible to sustain that which I deem important. Connection is making it a priority to live and just be, around everything I cherish. The word connection is often linked to relationships with people but as much I relate it to people, it is much more than that.

I relate connection to being around nature and just living. I relate connection to the simplest things around me. Connection isn't as complex as it seems. It could be built in the littlest of things, such as sharing a smile with a random kid, complimenting a random stranger on the road and letting their happiness rub off on you. I relate connection to being around things I enjoy doing. I relate connections to doing things that make me happy.

One of the words I wanted to describe my life in 2025 is intentionality. Today's reflection made me realize how far behind I am in achieving that. Intentionality is essential in building connections. People and non-people alike. Connection and intentionality work hand in hand. Meaningful connections wouldn't be meaningful without intentionality. And so, striving to be intentional about the things that matter the most is something I want to do more, from today onwards. I didn't think I'd be writing about connection today but that's the thing about self-assessments. You realize thing you didn't know were there, or things that could have been.

This is my response to the #KISS prompt for the week.

Images are mine

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