What's the use of being interesting if I'm not interested?

I'm afraid of living a boring life. More specifically, a life that other people think is boring. I rarely ever get bored with my own life, at least in the short term. I make plans, think of things to do, go on a bike ride, experiment with new recipes, read books, write down my thoughts. Sometimes I want to get out and see new places and sometimes I just want to wear my soft moccasins in a space that feels comfortable and familiar. It's a balance for sure, and I think it's different for everyone, but for me, the days of wanting to feel cozy and comfortable outnumber the days I want to be on the move and experiencing new things. At least that's what I thought up until recently. I've been revisiting this assumption because, this past year, I sincerely felt the need to uproot myself from the things I defined as secure and steady and reliable and to deliberately enter into a season of change, risk, instability, movement, freedom, and growth. I've been trying to articulate exactly what it was that motivated this in me and at the risk of being cliche, I'm using mountains and oceans to illustrate.

I love to walk and run and hike and be outdoors but I don't really love mountaintops. Honestly, most days I'm happier seeing them from the bottom looking up. But I make myself climb them anyways, because I think it makes me more interesting, and pushes me outside my comfort zone, and lets me challenge my physical and mental endurance, and, okay, I guess I do kind of like the adrenaline rush that comes with reaching a summit. Even still, when I was younger and the inevitable question of would you rather live by the mountains or the ocean came up, I would always choose ocean. [Was it just my family that was so aggressive about asking this question basically every day and the way we did it you had to make a choice and your choice meant literally one or the other and once you chose you would never even be able to visit the other landscape again?? Thankfully I have now discovered the pacific northwest so this was a lot of wasted emotional energy in my opinion.] The ocean, or at least the shoreline, feels so much more manageable than a mountaintop. Standing on the beach looking out at the waves is just close enough to the wild and mystery of the ocean to feel I'm a part of it, while keeping my two feet on the sand, that is, holding on to some semblance of stability and control. I want to feel the breeze and hear the waves rolling in but I don't want to let go and abandon myself to let the water take me wherever it may. Somehow, by the ocean, I can feel the electricity and adventure without overwhelming my human need for security and control. A mountaintop doesn't have that same security for me. I never know what the summit, or the journey to get there, is going to hold and I have to be ready to encounter and manage the unexpected. I'm also afraid of heights (sometimes I really wonder if this is the whole essence of the issue and I keep talking in circles when really I should just find some high rocks to jump off of into some water and then I wouldn't need to write these blog posts). The mountain is much bigger than me and climbing it means much more than standing on the shore and breathing it in, it means actually letting myself enter into the experience, and letting it change me. Relinquishing my usual comforts and replacing them with the steady determination of continuing to put one foot in front of the other, despite the difficulty of the terrain.  

What do you come to the mountain with? What do you leave behind at the top?               // Rakishi Georgia

Deliberately choosing to enter into a season of life full of unknowns feels a bit like choosing to climb the mountain to me. It's not comfortable, it's challenging, and it's very far from where I feel safe and secure. But I wanted to do it because I wanted to feel (and let) myself change. I didn't want to stand on the shore forever. I wanted more. And, I was also hoping to see some good scenery along the way.

What does all this have to do with being interesting? For me, somehow and somewhere along the line between my personality, my family, success culture, the environments I've been in, etc, etc, I got the idea that you had to climb mountains to be interesting. That you had to reach the top to be worth praising. That you had to achieve more to be worth more, and worthy of more. I know that this is deeply ingrained in my personality, and I love who I am, but sometimes I have to take a good hard look at all of those feelings and just remind myself it's not true. Because I am already enough, already worthy of love, already bringing value to the people that I interact with and places and spaces that I inhabit. I am just as interesting at the trailhead as I am at the summit. I want to do more things, see more places, feel more feelings, love more people, and all of those desires are good. But I also have to simply allow myself to be who I am, without doing or proving anything, and to know that's enough.

Did I have to go all in and move 3,000 miles to realize that I was just as interesting and as complete of a person living in Washington, DC as I am in Seattle? Maybe so, maybe so.

I'm not much for turning my own emotional health victories into universal lessons, but I do hope you realize that you are enough whether or not you enjoy hiking to metaphorical or actual summits. And if you happen to be an achievement-driven type like myself who is also afraid of heights (i.e. needs to climb mountains to feel good but is also afraid of mountains), I hope you can find some solidarity in my experience. Meanwhile, I'm headed to the ocean to listen to the restlessness in the waves and enjoy the feel of the earth under my feet, all at sea level.