Over the break I was inspired to start clearing out the spare rooms and actually fill it with furniture. On my search for second-hand pieces on Facebook Marketplace I saw a metal trundler bed with a foam mattress for sale and I was immediately reminded of my grandpa.
For about 14 years until she died, my grandma was bedridden because of a paralysing stroke. She slept in a hospital-bed that had remote control functions to adjust the positioning. Every night, my grandpa would lay out the trundler bed so that he could sleep in the same room as her, and every morning he would fold it up. It was a small room, and grandma mobilised with a wheelchair- so there wasn’t much room to put a proper bed in there. That bed must have been so uncomfortable. But I think grandpa just wanted to always be around her. I am pretty sure he still kept doing this after she died, until his final years when he was no longer physically capable of even looking after himself.
This brief memory of my grandparents made me reflect on time. How I’m now 30 years old and my grandparents are gone, and everyone is getting old. When I first noticed my grandpa with his trundler bed- I didn’t think much of it. That’s just what he did. But now, it’s a distant memory.
I’ve been reading Jay Shetty’s book ‘Think Like a Monk’ and in it he talks about how it is important to know what our values are, and to live intentionally. But we also have to realise that while we think we know what our values are, what we spend most of our time doing speaks volumes about what we actually value. It made me realise that actually, I spend a lot of my time on social media. In fact, I have a personal instagram, a blog instagram, a house instagram, and I also had a fitness instagram. What does that say about what I value? Is it a need to constantly put my life on display in order to show off or gain the approval of others in a subtle and socially acceptable way? When I reflect on this, I can’t think of any reason why having social media is useful to me or aligns with my values other than what I wrote above. So I decided to deactivate them all, in a bid to live intentionally. To stay true to my real values and goals, and not be distracted by social media and the need to post what I’m doing to a virtual audience. And although it has only been a couple of weeks, I think it’s been great. I have been able to read more, exercise, clean my house, have aesthetically-pleasing meals without the need to post it, and have more ‘me’ time that doesn’t involve staring mindlessly at a screen.
When I think about my time, I just want it to be filled with the people I care about, or consuming material that is beneficial to my health and well-being. I want to be present in my interactions, I want to be able to think deeply and reflect on the time I have with people, because one day these times will be distant memories.
The Weekday Notes 