I’m obsessed with the color pink — I can’t help it and I don’t want to.
Self honesty is key to personal growth and happiness
The older I get, the better I know myself. This may seem obvious, but as a 26 year old graduate student looking forward into the rest of my life, I find myself steeped in self discovery. Not the kind of “what do I want to do with my life” self discovery, but rather the “what kind of person am I” type.
Gretchen Rubin often says that knowing yourself better is one of the keys to a happier life. After years of following her work, I’m slowly beginning to see what she means.
Knowing yourself better makes you feel more connected to your personality, your thoughts, your behaviors, yourself. When being honest with yourself, it’s important not to cast judgement. Simply recognize some aspect of yourself without judging it.
Over this period of self reflection, I’ve noticed one pattern that I keep coming back to:
I can never do anything only a little bit.
It doesn’t really matter what it is. If I decide I like something, I go all in, full force, with a surging intensity that, at times, can be difficult to manage. There are so many recurring examples in my life that it has even become a meme among my friends and family.
Soil
Soil is an obvious one. I decided soil was going to be “my thing” and that was that. I have committed my life to studying soil, teaching soil, writing soil, reading soil, and exploring soil. I am a soil scientist through and through. When it comes to my understanding of soils, I may never be satisfied.
Like studying soil, most of my other passions are activities — ways that I choose to spend my time. The way you spend your time defines your life. Your daily activities determine your human experience. I choose mine carefully. Once I’ve chosen an activity that I love, I am constantly pushing myself to take it to the next level. I’m persistently squeezing all the juice out of all the lemons.
Distance running
I started running two years ago and it quickly became a passion. I decided I liked running and there was no turning back. Within two years, I’ve run over 1500 miles and two trail marathons along with many other shorter distance races. I’m now training for my first ultramarathon. How do you go from not being able to run a single mile to running ultras within two years? Pure unrelenting obsession. When I’m not thinking about soil, I’m thinking about running.
Of course, this is no surprise to anyone. Once I like something, I take it to the extreme. Running was no exception.
Why? Because running brings me so much joy. Running has revealed a level of physical and mental strength I didn’t know I had. Running puts me in a better mood, every single time. Running is a place for me to channel some of my intensity.
With the steady beat of progress, I find myself in a place where running has become part of my identity. I barely remember life without it.
The best part is, running goes hand in hand with my other obsession: writing. I may never be able to let these two things go.
Writing
Writing has always been something that has been relatively fluid for me. I didn’t struggle with it in school, but I didn’t necessarily latch onto it either. Until last year when I decided I liked writing.
In the midst of writing my dissertation, I decided that, compared to many of the other ways I spend my time as a graduate student, writing is one of the activities from which I get the most happiness and greatest sense of accomplishment. I went to a number of writing workshops and quickly realized it was time to reframe my relationship with writing.
It was time to attach writing to my identity.
From there, my obsession began. I have taken on a daily morning writing routine, attempted writing streaks, attended writing retreats, taken on new writing projects and made career goals to write scholarly books. I found my way to Medium by tasking myself with a New Year’s resolution of exploring non-academic writing.
In my first year of writing intensely, I’ve noticed that writing feeds on itself. The more I do it, the more I enjoy it. The more I enjoy it, the more I obsess over it. I am addicted to the thrill of writing and publishing. I crave the intellectual stimulus I get from putting words on a page.
My intensity even manifests itself in superficial aspects of my life: my clothing.
The color pink
I am a woman of favorites. Ask me “what’s your favorite _____” and I’ll most definitely have an answer for you. Pink is hands down, no questions asked, absolutely my favorite color. I decided about 6 years ago that pink was my favorite color (that’s a story for another day). As soon as I decided it was my favorite, I took it on for everything.
I love color, in general. Yes, my books are organized by color, not alphabetically. Yes, the same is true for the apps on my phone.
But pink reached a new status in my life many years ago. As soon as I decided it was my favorite color, I embraced it as part of my identity. I now wear some degree of pink every single day. Some days (like yesterday), I wear entire pink outfits. Shirts, sweaters, pants — you name it, I have it in pink.
Why? It’s simple — the color pink makes me happy. It’s so beautiful and easy to look at. I love all the shades of pink. I can’t imagine myself ever getting bored of the color pink.
Beyond that, the color pink makes me feel strong, feminine, and comfortable in my body. I always choose the pink outfit over any other. Just this morning I put on a white shirt but when the rest of my outfit was lacking a splash of pink, I switched to a pink shirt. I can’t help it, and I don’t want to.
So what have I learned in this period of self reflection?
I attach my obsessions to my identity and they become even more deeply engrained.
I am a soil ecologist.
I am a runner.
I am a writer.
And I love the color pink.
I’m committed to my crafts and I am lucky to have found simple things that I enjoy.
Despite this, I often find myself feeling self conscious about my intense nature because others don’t seem to have obsessions the way that I do. I often ask myself, “why does everything always have to be so intense?”. Other people often tell me I need to calm down — and I’m working on it, I really am!
But when it comes down to it, I wouldn’t trade my intensity for anything. It is the crux of who I am as a person. I even have a tattoo on my left ankle to remind me:
never stagnant, always growing
I’m only now in this period of deep self honesty and reflection, some 8 years after getting this tattoo, really realizing how important this motto is to my lifestyle. These words define my approach to the world. Keep pushing, keep growing, keep moving forward.
If I only know one thing about myself it’s this: progress and self-growth are key to my happiness. Embracing these can only lead to a fulfilling life.
Do you have a personal proverb? Words that you live by? A motto?
I’d love to hear how you use it to keep you motivated, honest, and happy.
