Taking Notes, Not Breaks
We are within one of the most stressful times of the year for me. My hair is thinning, my diet is exclusively mint tea and Lay’s potato chips. You guessed it! It’s finals season. I have FOUR finals within my full time schedule and this semester, all of my courses are reading-heavy. If I lose my mind and all of my personal relationships within the next two weeks, please forgive me.
A few days ago, I mentioned in my Instagram stories that because my workload has been so heavy lately, I have started to take notes during and after conversations with friends. At first, I thought nothing of it! I thought that I was just organizing my thoughts so that I could respond with insightful feedback. Someone then mentioned that it felt like they were in therapy, and not in a bad way. I continued this for almost four weeks now and now, before bed, I review the notes and reflect on some of the information shared with me.
I write down direct quotes that make me think, I jot down bits of wisdom, observe how some people respond to conflict and decipher whether or not their outcome was successful.
Within my own self reflection, I've noticed that I use people unrelated to me in order to help guide my decisions. Without a stable parental figure in my life, I am sort of left to figure out a lot of things on my own. So far, I would say that I am fairly successful. There are some areas within maintaining interpersonal relationships that I still struggle with, but I lean on my mental health professionals to help me make decisions that make me feel “good” and secure.
While I find myself stressed out to the brim with the responsibilities of work, school, businesses, independent research, this blog (lol), my mind still searches for ways to work. No matter how hard I try to turn things off and listen to my favorite podcast with a puzzle, I am always in my head like “there are so many opportunities in this world – I need to get after them”. Fuck I love my ambition, but I hate that there’s little balance for me to enjoy everything that I work so hard to obtain.
My grandmother holds the crown as the most quoted in my notes app. But this week, she was overtaken by one of my friends (we’ll name him Marvin to conceal his identity). Marvin and I had a brief lunch where I always first berate him about being more spontaneous with his wife, we check in on his older kids, and then we get into business talk. Marvin says AND I QUOTE!
“I have $300,000 burning a hole in my pocket right now and I need an investment property or business to put this into, but the numbers need to make sense. What can I do? Do you have any connections?”
First, I appreciate the relationships that I build with the people around me. I love the fact that everyone is able to get up at the end and say “wow! I feel good. I love talking to you”. That trust in my ability to listen and be non judgemental makes me feel so good.
Back to the story at hand.. I gave Marvin two possibilities for the money and contact information to a CEO of a food franchise in the area who could use the capital right now, and Marvin would probably get his money back before the summer with a good return.
The point here is that Marvin has $300,000 in cash right now. Marvin is also in his 50s and has had some time to build an incredible amount of wealth. The question for me then became “what do I need to do to have $300,000 in my account that is NOT delegated to retirement”.
As always, Marvin leaves me with some food for thought. He supported my decision to close the jewelry store, but encouraged me to look at new opportunities still within the jewelry space, but sourcing more locally.
Not sure what people don’t understand about me saying “I dont have the capacity”, but I am grateful that they are able to see my potential at a greater level than I do.
I say all of this to say, surround yourself with people you’d like to become more like and take notes! Something might not seem memorable today, but it will tomorrow when you're faced with a roadblock and you are clearly ill equipped. I think this should be applied to every sort of relationship (as long as the people you're speaking with are comfortable). I do this when I check in with my dean at school, friends, family, mentors, everyone. To be fair, everyone knows that I have little quirks to make sure that I'm present, so I think they expect anything at this point. Just be a little weird and let go of the idea of shame. It's a social construct.
Have a great week!
Fran.
