Asking (and Answering) This Simple Question Can Really Change Your Life

When I moved into my sister’s room almost a year ago, I hadn’t done much to personalize the space other than smother the walls in posters and paintings I had brought with me from my old room.

After sitting in it for months and months trying to decide what the space was missing, I came to the conclusion that a fresh coat of paint was just what it needed.

I knew that choosing the paint color would be the first hurdle because the last time I painted my room I spent $75.00 on paint, and an entire day painting only for the walls to go not even one shade darker than what they were before. But I knew the wonders a change of scenery could do for my aching psyche that had been promised an update for the new year.

So I called my two friends, Rebekah and Jasmine, and they agreed to help me get the job done.

I went in there with a pretty clear picture of what I wanted in my head. I wanted some sort of beige, not too light, not too dark.

But warm. The most important thing was that the color be warm.

But as I stood in the paint section of Home Depot, with about 1000 different shades in front of me, it became increasingly difficult to stick to my original vision.

Rebekah and Jasmine looked diligently through each paint swatch, bringing them to me in hopes of approval, selling each color to me as if it were a car.

Rebekah, who I personally believed missed her calling to be on the HGTV network, talked about “tones” and “shades” and “accent walls” and stuff. Jasmine on the other hand simply kept saying, “What about this one?”

It seemed that the more they talked, the less I knew.

Half an hour passed by before I felt myself losing hope. I wanted to call off Operation Paint.

Until…

Jasmine and Rebekah were off to the side looking at another brand of paint, getting ready to collect a handful of swatches and pitch their ideas to me, yet again.

But in their absence, I decided to ask myself:

“What do I want?”

I looked at the wall of colors and picked up a swatch, looking directly at one color. It was called Sand Motif. It was nice. It was beige. It was dark but not too dark. And it was warm. I put it back down and looked at the wall again. I saw a color similar to the one I had just picked up and grabbed the swatch. It was 

Sand Motif again.

When the girls came back over to me, each with about 15 swatches in their hands, I said:

“Wait. I’m gonna look at the wall, and whatever color I see and like will be the color I choose.”

A silent two minutes passed by. The Jeopardy theme song played in my head for the entire time. My eyes passed by a few colors that I liked from a distance, but nothing enough to pick up.

I caught my eyes wandering back to the same swatch over and over again, and decided to pick it up.

Sand Motif.

I looked at the swatch silently. And as the seconds passed by, I felt myself falling more and more in love with the color.

“Guys. This is it. This is the color!” I exclaimed, not realizing how excited I really was to finally decide on a paint color.

“Are you sure?” Rebekah asked.

“I went back to it three times without even knowing it was the same swatch. This is it. I know it. I feel it,” I replied.

The three of us jumped up and down and gave each other some sloppy high fives before excitedly approaching the counter to order a gallon of paint.

The moral of the story is that sometimes, no matter where we are or what we’re doing, everyone will be telling us what to do and how to do it. It’s up to us, particularly in those instances to be able to step outside ourselves, turn everyone else’s voices down, or off completely, and turn ours all the way up and ask ourselves:

What do I want?

Even if they’re our best friends, it’s us that has to make the final call. Nevermind what they want. Nevermind what they want us to want. Nevermind what they think.

When we were all done painting and the girls left. I put my furniture back in its place. And when it came time to hang up my posters again, I only chose a few. Because for once, I wasn’t so concerned with covering things up, but perhaps more interested in baring it all.

See, when you follow your heart and you trust your instincts, you have nothing to cover up. Or maybe you do but you don’t even feel the need to. Because you know that maybe it isn’t right for Rebekah or Jasmine, maybe it isn’t right for anyone else in the world.

But it’s right for you.

And it makes you look around before you turn your light off at night.

Or smile at the uncrowded spaces that were once filled on your walls.

It makes you feel warm.    

When I was in high school, I knew I wanted to be a journalist. But when it came time to apply to university, I didn’t listen to myself and enrolled in the history program instead. It took me two years to find out how unhappy I could be. I should've stuck to my original vision.

I’ll never forget the day my aunt asked me,

“Stephanie, what do you want?”

The words seemed like they were in another language as I repeated them to myself.

When I asked myself what I wanted, the answer was journalism, just as the paint kept reappearing before my eyes. I didn’t know how at home I was until I entered my lecture that first day, the same way I didn’t know how much I loved the color until it was all over my walls, good enough without the posters and the paintings.

So what is it that you want?

Is it a new job? A new paint job? A new car? A new life?

Sit down and figure it out. Make your way there. It might take a lot; it might be a few minor adjustments. But if it’s a process of moving mountains, stone by stone will eventually get the job done.

Whatever the case is, I can make a personal promise to each and every person reading this right now that asking yourself what you want, and then actually going after it will change your life.

Don’t believe me?

Just watch. 

Self-Love

Yesterday someone asked me, “What do you look for in a partner?”

This is a question that I had a well-rehearsed answer for whenever it was asked. It was one of those questions I anticipated being asked in that first phase of a blossoming relationship, or one that was blossoming for the time being at least. I loved this question because I got to outline my expectations.

But as I have come to learn, expectations lead to disappointments.

My aunt once told me, “Don’t ever tell someone what you want in a partner, because they act as that person just until they have you. Once they do, there is no need for the act anymore.”  For me, that lesson sunk in immediately.

It’s as if in that very moment, I realized where I had gone wrong in my past relationships. I had such a clear vision, of who I wanted, and what I wanted in that person, that I fell in love with their performance of my vision, rather than recognizing it was an act.

My retrospection on relationships illustrated to me how blinded and consumed I was by my romantic involvement. I often felt myself at odds with myself for not paying attention to my own needs, and neglecting my desires. I broke promises I made to myself, I shunned some of my closest friends, and I felt like I had no time because all of it was spent with the variable him.

When I was asked what I look for in a partner yesterday, my response, for the first time, was “Actually, I’m not looking for a partner.”

If you know me, you know that I’m always looking for a partner. I’m always looking for someone to talk to before I go to sleep, someone to text during class, someone to go out with on a Saturday night, and someone to spend Valentine’s Day with.

But something in me has changed, and a revolution has arrived within me.

My partners are my friends; the few that I have that promise me a good time even if we spend hours in a small space with nothing but our words, and always seem to deliver. My partners are my parents; who are in the living room when I come home, waiting to hear about the events that unfolded in my crazy life that day. My partners are my books; who fill my head with knowledge, inspiration, and food for thought when I need something, anything.

But most of all, my partner is me.

I am not going to re-enact the Women’s Liberation Movement, or belt out “Independent Women” by Destiny’s Child. I am not going to pretend I don’t get lonely at times. But I am going to profess the new found love that I have for the individual that I am, in my complete state of raw imperfection.

I am my partner.

I am the one person that doesn’t abandon myself when things hit the fan. I am the one person that knows everything from my lies to my truths, and everything in between. I know every flaw, every imperfection that makes me perfect. I know. I just know.

While I was writing this, I looked down at my right arm. And I had the simple thought, “My skin looks so soft.” That thought turned into a gesture of me wrapping my arms around myself. For a few minutes, I just sat there, embracing my own body, rocking gently back and forth. The embrace was so warm, so genuine, and so full of love that I began the most peaceful cry I have ever had in my life. Each tear was a piece of my freedom, a part of my emancipation, and a testament to my liberation.

In my head, I repeated, “I love myself. I am beautiful. And I am divine.”

I did not let go until those words travelled from my lips, to my head, to my heart, to my toes, through to my fingertips that radiated self-love to the flesh of my body.

I think that if any of that were untrue, I might feel weird about writing that, and a lot weirder for publishing it on a blog. But because that is my truth, I admit it shamelessly.

You are a mirror of your own world. If you want your world, your life, and your relationships to be full of love, you first must fill yourself with a love so unprecedented, so unconditional, that not even the wildest of fires could burn it, or you, down.

I have endured my fair share of tragedy, and I have endured my fair share of heartbreak, but in all those instances, I was my own healer. It was my hands that healed my wounds, and my voice that provided reason.

If any of that were untrue, I might feel conceited for writing that, and a lot more conceited for publishing it on a blog. But because it is my truth, I admit it shamelessly.

Find your truth. Find yourself. And find the truthful love that you have for yourself, within yourself. You might not want to profess it to the world. But one day, you will wake up so full of love for your life, for your friends, and for the world that you have created around yourself, that nothing short of standing on top of a mountain and screaming it out until you lose your voice will do you any good.

I realized that the reason I answered “I’m not looking for a partner,” surely wasn’t because I’m not looking for a partner. Like I said, I’m always looking for a partner. I think really and truly, it’s because deep down inside, I already have a partner.

Me.