This is about the search for your own direction and about how difficult it can be to hold your ground when others, even with the best intentions, try to step in and help.
It’s for those who struggle to define what they offer, how they’ll share it, where they’re going, and what outcome they’re truly aiming for.
There are moments when you move forward almost blindly, led only by surges of energy and a persistent pull toward something you can’t quite ignore.
— Why do you flip out right away? What button did I push to get this reaction?
— I already told you — I don’t have clarity yet. I don’t have an answer yet. And I asked you not to touch this topic (figuring out how to work for myself while I’m still experimenting and don’t know the path yet).
— But how are you supposed to do anything if you don’t even understand what comes next?
— I can see that every step opens something new, and I’m just… walking into it.
— But how can you — you don’t even know…
— Okay. Enough.
These conversations drive me up the wall.
When someone puts on that “I’m just trying to help” smart face and then starts explaining how I’m doing everything wrong. But nobody knows what the right way looks like.
Not yet.
So yeah, I put my spikes out.
Don’t touch me right now.
You don’t know what’s best for me.
I don’t even know myself yet.
I just know one thing.
I can’t keep doing it the old way. And I haven’t figured out the new way yet.
That’s it.
By the way, figuring out how to protect my own space took me quite a while too — months, even years.
I gradually got the hang of it.
First a simple “No.”
No explanations.
Then a firm “I don’t want to talk about this.”
And sometimes even a more emotional:
“Please don’t touch this topic — it’s really sensitive for me and I might blow up.”
I guess learning this skill is a necessary step on the way to building your own inner space.
Because even when you start constructing a house, the very first thing you do is put up a fence around the territory.
You may already have the blueprint in your head.
A clear idea of how you want it to look.
The inner resources to build it.
But unlike regular construction, I can’t hire outside workers to create my inner space for me.
That trick doesn’t work here.
It’s just me.
Only me.
Related writings:
Don’t Amplify My Entropy! Domestic Dialectics | No. 1 | In Pink.
The Need to Be Unique
For those of us born in the ’70s who intend to meet 2070
If this feels familiar
When You Know What to Do but Cannot Do It
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