Sydney Buchanan is my alter-ego. Like Beyonce’s Sasha Fierce or Eminem’s Slim Shady, she is my vehicle to express all parts of myself, and who I want to be, without fear or reservation. Because Sydney isn’t fearful. She’s brave. She’s who I want to be when I grow up.

But me, as I am, I don’t always feel brave. I used to oscillate between absolute despair and emboldened visions of the future. And when I say despair, I mean that I know what a planned complex suicide is, the common mistakes people make, and what tools are immediately available to me if I were ever so inclined. It’s not that “specific type of loneliness” everyone can relate to. It’s a deep, dark, and incredibly isolated space.

And when I say emboldened visions of the future, I don’t mean I want to make a million dollars (although, yes please). I mean that I needed the type of vision that could give my life meaning beyond me, because “I” wasn’t enough reason to carry forward. I have a fantasy that, in the end, what I’ve been through can make a difference in someone else’s life, or at the very least make them feel less alone.

If you’re new here, this series is about creating a life that serves you, starting with unlocking self-limiting beliefs. I’ve asked you to work alongside me as we explore a method that’s helping me loosen some of my most firmly held convictions. So, today, I am going to share what I’m working on. I want to put all of my cards on the table, because that’s what Sydney would do.

Subscribe

My homework (answering the questions I asked you to explore):

What self-limiting belief do you want to tackle over the next few weeks?

Belief: I will always be alone.

Values & Tensions: While I value community and connection, I have lived a life of fierce independence from a place of necessity. I didn’t “choose” to take care of myself. I had to take care of myself. And by the time it became a choice, I had already embraced it as my identity.

I am going to give you a ten-thousand-foot view of some of the underlying reasons I believe I will always be alone. In my “emboldened visions of the future,” these are the stories I’ll share in greater detail someday not too far from today. But, for now, rapid-fire bullet points will have to do the heavy lifting.

I am an only child who was raised by a single mother in a physically, emotionally, and psychologically abusive household. I know she came by what she did honestly, and I can rationalize the fuck out of why she may have acted that way toward me, but I haven’t been able to let go of how she made me feel. So, what’s stuck with me?

• Never knowing who my father was, or even seeing a picture of him, until I was in my 20s. I was just told he didn’t want to be in my life.

• My mom told the same story about my extended family. When I was a pre-teen, she said that they didn’t approve of how we lived and wanted nothing to do with us (me). I didn’t find out she was lying until I moved to Vancouver, BC, shortly after graduating high school and was shocked that an extended family member was willing to let me stay with her (“Wait, I thought your family hated me?”).

• Being systematically deprived of food for my entire childhood. I could eat when I was good and achieved. I couldn’t eat when I was bad or failed. As a result, I was chronically underweight and had an eating disorder I was entirely unaware of until my early 20s (I was 5’6” and 98 lbs.).

• My mother’s abandonment games. One time she made me pack up all my bags and told me adoption agents were coming to get me, because she didn’t want me anymore. I remember standing outside of our apartment complex alone and crying as I waited for someone to come take me away. Another time, as we were driving down some highway, she told me to get out of the car. I remember watching her drive away, but I can’t remember how we were reunited. I suspect her favorite game was to pretend to play dead. I would say or do something that would make her angry, so she would collapse on the floor and lie there as I cried and screamed for help. Then, when she recovered, she would tell me how I’d hurt her and remind me that, if I was bad, it would kill her.

• Being beaten by my mother or my mother’s friend, whether with a backhand, a belt, or a wooden spoon, whenever I misbehaved. I don’t know what the threshold was for her to hit me, but I know it stopped the day I hit her back.

• If I was in a tough situation and called for help, being reminded that I got myself in it and needed to get myself out. Like when I was 16 and ran away to Thunder Bay with my adult boyfriend. I called her terrified because it turned out the person I was staying with was a drug addict and wanted to get me a job at the strip club so I could pay her back for her hospitality. My mom said she didn’t have money for a bus ticket home and reminded me there were consequences to my actions.

• I got pregnant on that Thunder Bay trip and had my son, who I’d already arranged to place in an open adoption, the following spring. I had to stay in the hospital for a few days after his birth, so I asked my mom if she’d come visit me the next day. She declined, because she and my stepdad already had dinner plans with their friends. I doubt she’ll ever see this, but from the bottom of my heart, “thank you” to the woman on the other side of that room divider who talked me through my tears.

• I’ll end this short list on the note that cut the deepest. I had a momentary lapse in judgment where I thought that, just maybe, I could be a mother. Shortly after arriving home from the hospital, I canceled the adoption and asked my mom for help in planning what life could look like. When she shared how my son and I would stay in her moldy bedroom, where the wall was ripping off the house because the garage was collapsing, and that we’d keep him in there at all hours rather than getting rid of the 5 cats, 2 dogs, and loads of garbage and excrement scattered throughout the house, I called the adoption agent and told her I’d made a mistake. I couldn’t be his mother.

Still with me?

That’s how my mother instilled the belief that I would always be alone. I’m sure you can imagine how much I sought and proved my theory through the majority of my romantic relationships, because that’s how these cycles work. We can skip the SparkNotes for now, but just know that I know: it didn’t end with my mother.

Is there one thought in particular that keeps reinforcing your belief? How could you reframe it?

The one that’s loudest right now is the fact that today’s my birthday. And, you know who knows that? A very, very small handful of people. One of those people is my angel of an ex-husband. He sent a loving text message to me early this morning, reminding me that he will always be in my corner. The irony of our relationship is that it was only after our divorce that I started to believe in unconditional love. I can say with complete conviction that I love him dearly, and he will always be my favorite ex-husband. Another person who reached out is a childhood friend I’m not all that close with, but who has been in my life for longer than I remember. I’ve known her for 31 years, and today I turn 35. She sent me a text message to wish me a happy birthday, because that’s just who she is. The last person is a friend I met for coffee last week. I told her my birthday was coming up and that it wasn’t a big deal, because it couldn’t be a big deal. Because that would be crushing. She reached out too.

So, the particular thought that reinforces my belief is how many birthdays I’ve spent alone, and that I’m spending this one alone too.

How can I reframe? Well, the fact that none of my other friends have reached out can mean a lot, or it can mean nothing. The reality is we’re all adults. We’re busy, and our lives get away from us. I am choosing not to take the lack of reach outs personally, because it’s not personal. Whether or not someone intentionally or unintentionally didn’t wish me a happy birthday isn’t something I need to carry.

Also, I didn’t message everyone to remind them. And, in a way, that’s on me. I could’ve been more proactive to make plans today. I just didn’t want to because, in all honesty, there are no plans that could make today feel any better. I always feel lonely and sad on my birthday, because the people you’d expect to spend it with — a mother, a father, a child — aren’t in my life. And it’s not that they’re gone. It’s that they all have lives that are, for the most part, completely separate from mine. And that hurts.

Now, the belief I am tackling is a big one, and I don’t know if it will ever have a full resolution. But that’s not the point. Some stories don’t have a happy ending. But they can still teach us how to let go of what’s not working, and how to hold what’s left.

Subscribe

This is Part II of a multi-part series. If you haven’t already read “Is a personal rebrand the new mid-life crisis?” I suggest you start there.

According to my Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, a book that’s older than I am, a belief is defined as a “conviction of the truth of some statement or the reality of some being or phenomenon esp. when based on examination of evidence.”

While I love a good definition, we can simplify this tremendously by saying a belief is just a thought we accept as truth. Unlike the many fleeting thoughts we have throughout the day, a belief is something that we anchor to, even something we identify with. And a belief’s value isn’t solely based on whether or not it’s true. Sometimes it doesn’t matter if your belief is true. What matters is that you believe it.

Essentially, a belief is a filter. It determines how we interpret and experience reality, not what is actually happening. You know that saying, the one about wearing rose-colored glasses? Well, this is what it’s referring to. When you look at the world through rose-colored glasses you become overly optimistic and idealistic, often ignoring or altogether missing the potential negatives or risks in front of you. If you’re wearing rose-colored glasses, you’re not seeing the whole picture. You’re seeing what you want to see. What you want to believe.

Subscribe

This is where we arrive at the intersection between what is real and what we believe is real.

Because both have tremendous power over our lives.

I’m curious, what stories do you tell yourself?

• Maybe you rehash what went wrong in your last argument with your partner, a family member, or coworker. “Everything would’ve been different if they’d just done what I told them to do! They never listen.”

• Do you find you need to justify certain behaviors? “I can’t help it if they were offended. I’m blunt and some people just don’t know how to handle that.”

• Perhaps you think others should be treating you differently. “I just wish they’d text me more often. I always have to reach out first.”

I’m particularly interested in the thoughts you repeat; those can be sneaky ways that beliefs disguise themselves as facts.

If we examine our stories, we may notice that, regardless of what is objectively true, the conclusions we draw can end up having more of an impact than the truth itself.

• “Everything would’ve been different if they’d just done what I told them to do! They never listen.” Let’s give the full benefit of the doubt and assume that, had this person done as they were told, things would have been different. So, the truth may be that they didn’t do what we asked, but the belief we’re reinforcing is that we’re right and they never listen.

• “I can’t help it if they were offended. I’m blunt and some people just don’t know how to handle that.” Again, let’s give the full benefit of the doubt and assume that this person cannot handle someone delivering blunt truth to them (this also assumes what we’re saying is true). The truth may be that we’re blunt and they have trouble metabolizing blunt statements, but the belief we’re reinforcing is that we can continue to behave however we want and the other person needs to deal with it.

• “I just wish they’d text me more often. I always have to reach out first.” Talking in absolutes (always, never, all, none, etc.) is an immediate signal to separate what’s objectively true from our assumptions. It may be true that they don’t text first, but the belief that we’re reinforcing is that the relationship will fall apart if we don’t manage it.

Part of what spurred last week’s essay, and this entire series, was a call I’d had with another friend...

I shared that I’d hit a melting point with the negative thoughts in my head. I knew they weren’t the whole truth, but they would not stop. I’d tried meditating, rationalizing, and self-soothing, but nothing was working. So, I tried something new.

I pulled out my laptop and typed out every single negative thought. Completely freeform. No edits and no reservations. Then, before I could start rationalizing, I grabbed a big piece of poster board along with a permanent marker and proceeded to first smell the marker (who doesn’t love that smell?), then reframe every single negative thought.

While I am proud to say that I deleted the doc immediately after (part of banishing the negative thoughts), it would’ve been helpful if I’d kept it for this article. A couple of examples that stuck with me were:

• “I don’t know what I’m doing” became “I am a great learner. I pick up things quickly.”

• “Things never work the way I want them to” became “I am not afraid to try again.”

The purpose of the reframe wasn’t to put a positive spin on things or trick myself into thinking something wasn’t true. Rather, it helped me to explore the emotion beneath each thought so I could address it head-on.

Sure, there are genuinely times when I have no idea what I am doing. But, rather than dwell in that thought and feel helpless, I can reframe it by reminding myself that I am, in fact, a very fast learner. So, if I don’t know, I can learn.

I keep the poster board beside my desk so it’s at hand whenever my mind starts to wander. I read it top to bottom every time a (unhumorously) self-deprecating thought pops in my head. I read it when self-doubt starts to creep in. And I read it whenever I need to remind myself that I am doing my best and deserve to celebrate it.

Now, it wasn’t a scientific experiment, but the results have been stellar. Those negative thoughts rarely make an appearance, and I’ve become incredibly intentional about meeting my doubts with a dose of reality.

How does all of this tie back to living a life that’s in alignment with our passions, who we are, and who we want to be?

Well, first we need to make sure we’re not sabotaging ourselves by building our plans on beliefs that hold us back from seeing things for what they are. So, let’s start with our beliefs.

Subscribe

While I appreciate 34 is too young for a mid-life crisis, I’m a Millennial, and I was raised on MTV drama. I rotate between quarterly and semiannual crises depending on where I am geographically (SAD just doesn’t hit as hard in Mexico), and a vast majority of what I call “crises” are mild to moderate self-induced inconveniences that pass within the season.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s dive into a near crisis-level question that seems to be hitting a lot of my friends in their 30s, 40s, 50s (to infinity, and beyond!): “How do I create a life that serves me, instead of me serving it?”

One of my girlfriends sent this text to help spur some ideas for an essay:

Little did she know, I’d had a nearly identical conversation with another friend just a few days before. And, in truth, this topic has been on my mind almost daily since I started my gap year (I’m also rebranding “layoff”).

At first thought, the answer seemed simple. If you want a more meaningful life:

• Just do a quick audit of your belief systems to identify gaps between your beliefs and objective reality.

• Dig into where those beliefs come from and how you reinforce them in your everyday life.

• Compare those to the values you live by (assuming you’ve already done a full values audit).

• Mash those two together until you find keys to a brand new car under your seat.

• Take that car for a test drive as you create a plan to integrate your values into your everyday life so you can reshape your beliefs and take meaningful action toward your goals. Shit, did I mention goals? I hope you have those too.

Is it any wonder that I have seasonal to semiannual crises with that approach?

There may be truth in it. But change isn’t that simple.

So, rather than try and tackle this conversation in a single essay, we’re going to start our first series together! I’m calling it [WORKING TITLE] because — really — that’s all this is. Your life is your working title. You can call it whatever you want today and call it something new tomorrow. It’s yours to discover. It’s yours to name.

Subscribe

Imma be honest, I’m building the bus while I’m driving it.

Or however that saying goes.

I’ve been on my gap year since April and have lived more in six months than I have in the last decade. And when I say “lived,” I certainly don’t mean accomplished. I haven’t produced anything of value: aside from deepening friendships and meeting new people. I haven’t brushed up my resume or learned new skills: aside from emotional regulation, healthy boundaries, and self-love. I haven’t even definitely figured out how I’m going to make up for all the money I’m not making right now: I have business plans in the mix, but entrepreneurship is a risk in itself.

But I’m happier than I have ever been.

And while not being stuck in that soul-crushing 9-5 has helped, it’s not the whole story. Because, as anyone who’s spent time alone knows, your vices and dissatisfaction follow you. It doesn’t matter whether you’re working or on your dream vacation. Your state of mind dictates your experience.

“Wherever you go, there you are.” — Jon Kabat-Zinn

And trust me, my vices and dissatisfactions followed me. My appetite for progress has turned my yoga practice into a roughly 12-hour weekly commitment. I love it, and I’m also healthier than ever, but I can see it taking the place of my “work harder, do more, earn more” mentality. My drive for perfection has made starting a business an emotional rollercoaster fraught with self-doubt and sleepless nights. And my inner dialogue has been rattling off phrases from the people who have hurt me the most. It’s as if their doubts have become my doubts.

But, my time alone hasn’t been time wasted, and things are starting to change.

So, here’s the framework we’re going to follow (unless assembling the bus tells us otherwise).

During the next few weeks, we’ll talk through:

It’s not an expert’s framework, but it works for me. And I know that “framework” makes it sound formal, but it’s not. Trust me. I ran through the entire thing within the last 48 hours when I made first contact with my philosophy crush.

Long story short, I discovered a self-limiting belief that had been masquerading as a value.

I thought that I valued when people didn’t speak on a subject unless they were an expert, dutifully informed, or gave a clear disclaimer of their ignorance. And, while I formed that sentiment based on my values, it wasn’t a value. It was a belief.

I believed that people who didn’t know what they were talking about were either dumb or doomed to eternal embarrassment (I’m referring to speaking on a public scale, not to your friends). And that belief, as I uncovered, did nothing but spoil my experience. It didn’t change how other people behaved. It made me more critical than compassionate. And it stopped me from giving myself grace.

Hence, it was limiting. For me. And, in the end, it boiled down to my fear of speaking out of turn. My fear that “being wrong will confirm something shameful about [me],” to quote the Perplexity chat I pour these thoughts into. Ultimately, my belief was a protection mechanism. And, I am thrilled to say, I’m at a point in my life where I don’t need to protect myself from things I feared as a child.

So, I followed the framework and faced it head on.

• Belief: I can only speak when I’m certain I’m not going to say something stupid, or when I’ve professed my ignorance to the point nobody would question it (yes, it got uncomfortable).

• Values: Knowledge. Integrity. Consideration. Accountability.

• Tension: My belief set a standard that made it impossible for me to express myself openly or trust in what I had to say.

See, we’re halfway through already!

Now, on to Goals → Actions → Reflection.

I set a goal to approach all my Substack-related efforts more casually. Less planning. Less research. Less time spent on things that, frankly, nobody else notices.

To kick it off, I dove into the deep end and made a ridiculous comment on my philosophy crush’s Substack. Partly because it aligned with my goal, but mostly because the idea that he may see it made my cheeks red.

Was I risking public stupidity and humiliation? By my standards, most certainly. Was I going to do it anyway? Absolutely. Game on.

Yup. I told him that I was a koala bear and that I didn’t have chlamydia. And you know what, he replied!

Now, as part of my reflection, I can laugh at myself. I can be grateful that I took a risk and got a reward rather than a restraining order. And I can take stock in the fact that making one silly comment didn’t publicly humiliate me.

I know that I haven’t rewired to a new, more aligned belief in 48 hours. It’s going to take practice. But I want to make sure we celebrate the wins along the way, because they deserve attention too.

So, that’s it. That’s the framework we’re going to follow as we tackle this season’s crisis question: “How do I create a life that serves me, instead of me serving it?”

What do you think? Are you in?

Subscribe

We covered a lot of ground in “You probably have no idea what you’re talking about,” so let’s start with a quick recap before we continue our journey through William K. Clifford’s “The Ethics of Belief.”

In a nutshell, Clifford asserts that it’s imperative to scrutinize the evidence behind our beliefs.

He explains that, even when false beliefs lead to favorable outcomes, we still have a duty to examine whether or not we had a right to hold those beliefs in the first place.

We touched on how points of view are often perpetuated without question through social media and the dangers of forming beliefs based solely on emotion.

We also defined a “right” belief as being based on sufficient evidence, while acknowledging that a right belief isn’t necessarily infallible (it can still turn out to be wrong).

Subscribe

Ultimately, we’re responsible for what we perpetuate.

So, shouldn’t we apply some due diligence before we ask our community to accept our beliefs as facts? Or perhaps we should start by acknowledging how much our communities are defined by our belief systems?

The people you surround yourself with, the types of ideas you’re open to hearing, and the amount of pushback you’re willing to tolerate are all based on your own morals and belief systems. You may think that you’re part of an open-minded and accepting community, but it could just be that you all agree on what it means to be open-minded and accepting.

The degree to which you pressure test your beliefs, rather than accepting them at face value, doesn’t just affect you. It affects everyone around you. Namely, your closest family and friends. To quote Clifford, “The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things, though that is great enough: but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them, for then it must sink back into savagery.”

Another millennial translation:

• If you accept beliefs without questioning them, you’re an easy mark for anyone who wants to influence your opinion.

• Consequently, if you’re part of a community (family, friend group, political group, etc.) that follows what they’re told, without question, you’re complicit in lowering the level of scrutiny and standards for something to be called “truth.”

• Low standards for truth paired with a lack of critical thinking is regression, even if it’s sold as unity.

I’ll admit that our core belief systems are formed long before we have the words to articulate them. But it seems fair to say that anyone reading this essay is capable of finding information that could challenge even their longest-held beliefs.

“That’s just how I was raised,” and “I don’t have time to look into it” aren’t valid reasons to perpetuate uninformed opinions when you have the means and privilege to do otherwise. I’m paraphrasing here, but Clifford offers simple terms that if you don’t have time to investigate a belief, you shouldn’t have time to believe it either.

This level of discernment is one of the biggest gaps in our political conversations. I mentioned in Part I that “we’d benefit from spending less time feeding into emotionally and morally driven political statements and more time genuinely investigating the evidence behind the claims.”

I’ll add to that now by giving some completely unsolicited advice: My personal litmus test for whether I want to engage in a political conversation with someone. It’s easy! I just ask whoever is making the argument to give two valid counterpoints to their opinion.

If they can’t, that’s my signal that they haven’t done what I’d consider due diligence in investigating the claims they’re spreading. At that point, I’m not interested in being part of the conversation. Not because I don’t think they have something valuable to say, but because I can’t trust their interpretation. And, in that case, I’d rather research the subject myself, with a fresh perspective, than start off with a potentially biased point of view.

II. The Weight of Authority*

We need to be practical about how much due diligence we expect someone to perform before sharing their beliefs. Partly because experts have probably already looked into it, but also given that our evolution is based on the wisdom we pass from generation to generation. The purpose of forming a right belief isn’t to question everything for the sake of it. It’s to ensure that the evidence we’re basing our beliefs on still holds up to present standards.

Clifford notes that humanity has already done its duty in testing what have become the foundational principles we live by, including basic moral standards and laws of nature. If these beliefs are subject to further testing, the evidence will either continue to prove what we already know to be true, or lead us to more interesting discoveries.

This saves us from having to test everything from scratch and enables us to continue to expand our foundational knowledge. We can trust past generations’ conclusions and still remain open to discovering new questions and methods to test what we already believe.

On a scientific level, quantum physics was born out of classical physics’ inability to explain the behavior of an atom at a microscopic level. We didn’t stop asking questions because our present model failed to answer them. We expanded our understanding of the problem to be solved, and in turn found an entirely new solution.

On a social level, we continue to develop policies to ensure we’re supporting the needs of our citizens, while simultaneously questioning the basis for policies in development. What can present as a chaotic political system is also our way of ensuring we’re demanding sufficient evidence when making sweeping changes.

Now, I’d like to share an unintentionally meta example of trusting a source’s authority. I’m basing this essay on a printout my college professor gave me back in 2015. I kept it because it meant that much to me. But, as I was reviewing it to write this essay, I noticed this particular section is actually an abridged version of Clifford’s original!

So, in truth, I’m not basing my conclusions on the entirety of Clifford’s words; I don’t know them. I’m basing them on the trust that my college professor didn’t omit paragraphs that would completely invalidate the beliefs I’ve formed.

I hope you appreciate the irony as much as I do. And, if you have questions on the missing sections, let me tell you right now that “I don’t know,” but I’ve ordered a full version of the essay so I can find out for both of us. In the meantime, my essay deadline is sooner than Amazon’s delivery schedule, so I’ll count this as evidence that I’ll survive publishing something that is less than perfect.

III. The Limits of Inference*

So, if a right belief requires evidence to support it, what happens when we can’t validate a belief with direct evidence or experience? To answer this, Clifford argues that:

• Nothing but the present moment can be validated by direct experience.

• Our beliefs are founded on the assumption that the future is consistent with the past.

• The past isn’t really direct experience. It’s a memory that’s prone to mistakes.

Confused?

To put it in simple terms, we can only experience the present moment. The past is a memory, and the future is merely a prediction that assumes some level of natural uniformity. And, while we can acknowledge that nature isn’t always uniform (modern science continues to challenge what we believed was possible), it’s really the best working assumption we have for things we can’t test.

To help illustrate this, Clifford gives examples that involve a spectroscope, the sun’s hydrogen, the Peloponnesian war, and potential forgeries. Not nearly as emotionally evocative as the shipowner and island community from Part I! Rather than dive into the particulars of his examples, I’ll give you a quick summary so we can explore how to apply Clifford’s rules of inference to everyday life.

In keeping with the rules of uniformity, Clifford highlights that with available evidence (how hydrogen behaves on Earth) and proper testing mechanisms (the spectroscope), we can draw conclusions about things we haven’t directly tested by comparing them with things we have (in this case, identifying hydrogen in the sun the same way we do on Earth).

For a modern translation, let’s go back to Instagram’s therapy tips. Some observations are rooted in genuine advice from professionals while others are rooted in AI scripts that were never subjected to scrutiny. Without reliable sources (authority), it’s tough to know if the information you’re getting is accurate, never mind whether it applies to your personal circumstances (inference).

Alright, so what point was Clifford trying to make about how an ancient war and potentially forged documents can help us define how we draw conclusions? In short, a single document (a manuscript) may not provide conclusive evidence of an event (the siege of Syracuse during the Peloponnesian war). But, if its story can be corroborated by other documents from credible sources (like additional manuscripts and books), we can use the rules of uniformity to draw a reasonable conclusion about what likely happened.

On the flip side, if a document appears to be tampered with or comes from a disreputable source, we can’t confidently draw conclusions from it without further evidence.

How does this translate to us? Look no further than whatever device you’re using to read this essay. We’re inundated with advertisements claiming that a product is the #1 recommended [insert product type here] by the top [insert profession here]. But, if you look at the fine print at the bottom of the screen, which nobody does, you’ll see a number of disclaimers and qualifiers that narrow what the claim actually means. Aside from hiding figures in the fine print, ads can also use loosely defined terms or statements that may be superficially true, like calling products non-toxic, cruelty-free, or ethically sourced, without sharing the actual data used to support their claims.

So, what now? Am I suggesting that you abandon your beliefs, subject all new information to thorough examination, and monitor your friends and family to ensure they only perpetuate ideas they can prove with evidence or direct experience?

I’d love to say “yes,” and that this is the abridged version of my essay.

But no. Realistically, you can’t question everything about everything. Analysis paralysis is real and we need to make reasonable assumptions in order to live in modern society. Not only is it okay to make a decision based on a belief that you’re not certain of (“I don’t know” but I’m going to do it anyway), you also don’t have to follow Clifford’s words to a tee.

The purpose of these essays is to give you a modern take on “The Ethics of Belief,” not to argue for or against Clifford’s claims. If you’re interested in another way to look at things, William James’ “The Will to Believe” offers a direct critique of Clifford’s claims and may very well address any reservations you have in accepting his argument.

You don’t need to have an answer for everything. But there is a significant gap between admitting you don’t know something and are choosing to believe it anyway, and insisting that your beliefs are facts while refusing to question them.

_{*Section headings from William K. Clifford’s “The Ethics of Belief” (1877).}

Subscribe

As a recovering debate club enthusiast, and someone who revels in a little disagreement, I like to have a solid point and counterpoint on hand before sharing my opinion on a heated topic. So, naturally, I’m drawn to philosophies that demand adequate evidence before we accept something as truth.

Back in college, my philosophy professor introduced me to an essay that became the foundation for my personal doctrine of examined living. If you’ve read my work, you’ll know that I credit Socrates’ famous quote that “the unexamined life is not worth living” as the inspiration for my doctrine. But I owe my understanding of what it means to live an examined life to William K. Clifford (1845–1879).

His essay, “The Ethics of Belief,” argues that we have a responsibility to examine the evidence behind our beliefs before deciding they’re true. He took it a step further and asserted that, when acting on our beliefs, the outcome of our action is irrelevant and we should be judged solely on whether we had sufficient evidence to hold the belief in the first place. To put it in his exact words,

Now, you may be wondering why I’m bringing up a concept from an 1877 essay written by a man you’ve probably never heard of. So let me cut right to it:

I’m curious, how much do you really know about your beliefs?

Think about the beliefs you’ve inherited from your family, learned in school, from books, videos, or podcasts, maybe heard from your neighbor, a friend, or your partner. You may have formed a new belief today from something you saw on social media! But how much do you actually know about what you believe?

Now, this is not a philosophical publication, and I am not going to present you with an argument for or against Clifford’s theory. What I am going to do is walk you through “The Ethics of Belief” with a modern interpretation, so we can apply this ancient, 150-year-old wisdom to the digital age we live in.

Subscribe

I. The Duty of Inquiry^*

Clifford’s essay starts with a story of a shipowner who, although he had some well-founded doubts about the seaworthiness of his ship, ultimately overcame his trepidations and sent the ship to sea with faith that the emigrants onboard would arrive at their destination.

The ship sank. The emigrants died. And he got the insurance money. Win/win, for him at least.

Easy question: Is he responsible for their deaths? Yes. More interesting question: Why is he responsible for their deaths? Simple. He should have known better.

The man accepted his own rationalizations and emotional reasoning as proof that the ship was safe to sail, to the point he believed it. And, rather than have the ship inspected, he quelled his doubts without any actual evidence.

The outcome makes it easy to say he was guilty of the emigrants’ deaths. But the outcome itself is not what makes him guilty. The fact that his beliefs and consequent actions were based on his feelings, rather than any actual evidence, was where he went wrong. The ship could’ve arrived safely and he would still be wrong, just not publicly.

In millennial terms:

• We choose our actions, not their consequences.

• Emotions and rationalizations aren’t evidence.

• Being lucky about the outcome doesn’t mean that we were right. It means we were lucky.

How many times have you talked yourself down by saying things like “I’m overthinking it,” “it’ll all work out in the end,” or “it turned out alright! Nothing to worry about?”

I’m not saying that self-soothing through reassurance is evil. I do it fairly often! But convincing ourselves to believe something based on absolutely zero evidence isn’t a great way to approach our core belief systems.

Clifford goes on to introduce another example of an island community that believed children were being indoctrinated into a religion by questionable means. A group formed to protect the children and began making very public accusations against certain community members.

Eventually, a formal commission was formed to investigate, and can you guess what they found? Absolutely no evidence to support the claims being made. In fact, there was ample evidence that showed the accused were innocent, and it wasn’t that hard to find. It was obvious the accusers hadn’t done their homework before making public statements.

This poses the same question as before, but in a slightly different manner.

Were the men who formed the group responsible for their actions and the resulting embarrassment? Yes. Why were they responsible? Because, despite being rallied into a group consensus by high emotions and personal bias, they should have known better.

I would be remiss to not draw a connection between emotionally passionate claims and politics. The same patterns show up each time a political issue becomes a point of contention:

• A political opinion becomes conflated with a moral high ground (this is good, that is bad).

• People group together based on their political opinion.

• Some accept the claim because it supports what their side already believes, and others reject the claim because accepting it would mean betraying their group.

We’d benefit from spending less time feeding into emotionally and morally driven political statements and more time genuinely investigating the evidence behind the claims.

Now, Clifford does acknowledge the difference between having a belief and acting on it. You can’t be arrested for having a bad thought (we’re gonna stay clear of that conversation), but you can and should be held accountable for your actions.

But, let’s say I ask someone who is vehemently opposed to a political opinion to review objective evidence that supports that opinion. What are the odds their belief isn’t going to impact their conclusions? Probably zero. Realistically, our beliefs are the driving force behind our actions, which means we can’t sever them completely.

Let’s pivot to the very modern phenomenon of social media.

With Instagram, you’re often exposed to new beliefs within the first 3 seconds of a video. It’s quite literally designed to feed you content that hooks your attention so you stay engaged with the app.

Think of its therapy-adjacent videos. You may feel like you learned something (and maybe you did), but that could be because it’s designed to make you feel something. In this case, to feel instantly validated by a stranger, to the point you’re pulled into their beliefs and want to like, follow, and share their content without ever asking a single question.

The trending “bitch era” videos are the embodiment of half-baked advice being perpetuated en masse. If someone is unable to set and hold healthy boundaries, the solution is not for them to be a total bitch because they’ve “tried the nice way.” They may need to work on their boundaries, emotional regulation, stress tolerance, communication, or find a way to end whatever relationship the pattern keeps repeating in. Either way, the solution is not to treat people in ways you would not want to be treated, while calling it personal growth.

Alas, here we are. So, if you find yourself justifying behaviors that you know you wouldn’t want done to you, consider that a red flag to evaluate the beliefs you’re acting from.

Now, I’ve made Instagram clips, and I’ve decided to pivot to long-form YouTube videos so I have more room to explore complex ideas. This is not a shot at Instagram’s framework or the content that’s on there. My point is that when you try to compress complex ideas into bite-size chunks, you risk losing the foundational knowledge that’s required to form a belief based on evidence, not emotion.

And I’m not immune to this! I’ve watched at least a dozen videos that prove my ex is a narcissist. Of course I have no idea how to diagnose a narcissist and have serious doubts the guy on Instagram knows my ex, but I do know that belief helped me heal from our breakup.

I’m not criticizing anyone for doing this. I’m just highlighting how much we do it, and how often it goes unchecked.

My first essay, “We Explain Before We Experience,” touches on why we cling to explanations and mistake understanding for acceptance. In short, explanations can kill curiosity, given that we don’t usually question what we already understand. I want to connect the dots here by noting that, in this context, believing something can feel like understanding it, which creates a sense of control.

Now, why would anyone risk losing control by asking questions and evaluating evidence in a way that betrays their beliefs? Unless you’re aware of your inclinations and actively keeping them at bay, it’s likely you’ll fall into some sort of confirmation bias when you investigate an opposing idea.

Going back to Instagram, if you find one video, then another, then another, that all say the same thing, where do you draw the line between learning something new and merely reinforcing what you already believe? And, just curious, how many of your new beliefs do you start preaching as fact?

The same echo chamber happens when you give AI a biased prompt. Load a question with assumptions and a predefined conclusion, and you’ll get an answer that aligns with whatever you already believe. AI’s response may sound true, but that doesn’t make it true, which is probably why the systems have so many disclaimers!

To be clear, having what we’ll call a “right” belief, a belief based on sufficient evidence, could still lead you to make the wrong decision. But at least it was founded in evidence. And, from Clifford’s perspective, that makes all the difference in whether or not someone had the right to hold that belief.

Now, I’m going to confess something I did based on what I think was a right belief, but was counter to widespread public opinion.

During COVID, my province was locked down by health zones and only essential travel was permitted. So, when my great-uncle told me he’d applied for MAID (medical assistance in dying) and planned a very small get-together to say goodbye, I really didn’t know what to do. “Essential travel” is subjective, and that made it hard to feel confident whether my government would agree this was essential. A lot of people lost family members during COVID and they weren’t able to say goodbye. But we found ourselves in a very unique scenario where my great-uncle was in control of the time and place.

This was the last time I would get to see the man whose artwork and furniture now decorate my home. He meant a lot to me. I wasn’t going to say “yes” based solely on emotion, but I also wasn’t going to say “no” based on someone else’s opinion.

So, like the data nerd I am, I went to my province’s COVID dashboard, where they published live updates and, shockingly, gave access to the raw data. I pulled the raw data. I analyzed it. I even had my then-boyfriend vet the logic and formulas I’d used to make sure I wasn’t omitting an important consideration.

Without getting into the details, I’ll just tell you that the data we saw showed a very different picture than what was being broadcast. Our risk and the risk to others at the gathering, given the precautions we would take to isolate during and after, were well within our tolerance. We visited my great-uncle and got to say goodbye.

This isn’t a stance on COVID measures or a declaration of what’s right or wrong. I had the privilege of gathering information from a reputable source. However, the analysis displayed on the dashboard and the numbers being circulated by the news didn’t include the information I found when I analyzed the raw data. The information I gathered was widely available, just not widely advertised.

So, was my belief that I could visit my great-uncle “right,” in the sense that it was based on what I considered sufficient evidence? Yes. Was my government’s belief that I should have stayed in my health zone “right,” in the sense that it was based on what they considered sufficient evidence? Yes. My personal interests as part of a two-person household, with full knowledge of our health and resources, led me to prioritize different data than my government, which had to account for the health and safety of millions.

But whose standards are actually right?

… I don’t have an answer for that one.

_{*Section heading from William K. Clifford’s “The Ethics of Belief” (1877).}

That’s a wrap for Part I.

Part II will explore how “The Weight of Authority” and “The Limits of Inference” (Clifford’s words) collide with the digital age, including our responsibility for the (mis)information we spread, how to know who we can trust, and what to do when we don’t have any evidence.

Subscribe

If I reduce my current life crisis down to the brass tacks, it’s really nothing more than a cliché: I’m yet another mid-30s woman who was laid off from her six-figure career and is on an adventure to find herself through some creative means.

But as I’m lying awake at night wondering how I’m going to support myself, whether I’ve made the wrong decisions, how I’m supposed to show up in this world, and why I’m still awake at 2 a.m.… nothing feels cliché. It feels like I’ve lost something that gave me meaning. And it hurts. And, without that meaning, what am I left with? Who am I left with?

Well, I’m left with me. And I don’t really know what that means anymore. I imagined myself to be one of those accomplished women who’d risen above their circumstances and had nowhere to go but up. Yet, when I’m in bed trying to calm my racing thoughts by patting myself on the back and using breathing techniques I learned in group therapy, I don’t feel all that accomplished. I feel like I’m on the edge of what was and what’s coming, with absolutely no clue if I’m going up or down. I had a map of my value and place in the world, and it turns out I’d hitched it pretty tightly to a job. So, when I lost my job, I lost a piece of myself.

Subscribe

This was after I’d recovered (or so I thought) from yet another cliché: I’m also a divorced woman who married a man she loved dearly, but who ultimately wanted different things.

We built an incredible life together. Over 9 years, we pulled ourselves out from renting rooms in a shady apartment on the edge of the city to owning a townhouse, which we had renovated while we worked remotely from Mexico! We were living our dreams. Until we realized we had different dreams.

That was the first time I saw the gap between who I thought I was and who I actually was. I thought I was a Mrs. with a plan, and a man, and a level of security I’d never known before. But when my marriage fell apart, I realized just how painful it was for me to be on my own. So, I rushed to some very maladapted coping mechanisms that I hadn’t used in a long time. 9 years to be exact.

Was it predictable? Sure, I guess? In the grand scheme of things, our lives are filled with predictable patterns. But to say that our lives are ultimately just a consequence of our patterns of behavior diminishes the experience of what it means to be human. It’s true, but it’s not the entire truth. What lies beneath our patterns, where they come from, and what we do with them, is ultimately what shapes our lives. And before we redesign what our lives look like, we need to recognize what’s actually happening.

And guess where those maladapted patterns I resorted to came from? Hint: It’s the same place as absolutely every other person on the planet.

My childhood.

Full disclosure, this paragraph is why I added the warning at the top of the essay, and I’m going to gloss over it faster than I did the layoff and marriage. For now at least. Let’s just say that abuse, lack of basic care, poverty, and a deep and aching loneliness were nothing outside the norm, and frankly not things I even knew were abnormal until I was an adult. Because that’s the thing about growing up in those types of environments, you don’t know any better. What do you mean it’s not normal to force a panicked and screaming child to calm down by smothering them? It always worked with me! Huh… you buried your animals in the back yard when they passed away? Interesting. Mine usually went in the freezer.

I learned to cope with the life I had by developing strategies that I truly believe kept me alive. I didn’t realize the weight of that until one of my therapists helped me articulate why it was so hard for me to confront those strategies. They weren’t just about coping. They were about survival. And they didn’t suddenly disappear when I grew up.

One of my golden techniques was detachment. I could leave what was happening around me and take refuge in my imagination. Part of that detachment turned into my uncanny ability to witness, analyze, and explain what happened to me intellectually, without ever having to experience what it felt like. I used to be able to recite things that would make your stomach turn without batting an eye. But recently, that’s started to change.

Life loves to serve us package deals. So, as an added bonus to my divorce and layoff, my childhood coping techniques came rushing back to save the day. It’s not that I meant to cling to them. I know they’re unhealthy. But there’s an enormous gap between being aware of my internal blueprints and completely reinventing my entire approach to self-talk, emotional regulation, stress management… all the things! And, that gap is what brought me here.

Knowing there’s a possibility to do things differently and becoming a fundamentally different person can be decades apart.

And I refuse to spend the rest of my life reliving my trauma responses.

I am not rejecting who I was or what I needed to do to survive. I am not blaming myself for how I learned to cope. But I need a change.

And the biggest transformation I’ve seen, at least so far, is when I started expanding my awareness beyond a purely intellectual understanding. I had to start working through how I felt about things, and what I could do about them, rather than just stopping at an explanation.

Enter: examined living. Socrates’ famous quote, “The unexamined life is not worth living,” basically asserts that a life without careful examination of our own thoughts and actions through reflection, active inquiry, and action that aligns with our values, isn’t really a life worth living. Now, I’m not a philosophical scholar. I took one class (which I aced, mind you) before I dropped out of college in my mid-20s. But the idea that I could change the trajectory of my life just by paying closer attention to what was happening inside me, which I was already a pro at, felt like a get-out-of-jail-free card. The only difference, which turned out to be a big difference, was that I couldn’t just process things through a theoretical lens. I had to learn how to integrate them into my new “let’s feel everything” journey. And, although I’m being cheeky, I do think this is the journey of my lifetime.

So, when I get a rush of what I’m convinced is a chemical dump of pure adrenaline when I make a mistake, or when I start to catastrophize about how my friendship is going to end in ruins because I don’t agree with them, I can turn toward questions like: What do I believe is happening? Why do I believe that? What do I feel like I need to do? Where is that feeling coming from? When have I felt like this before?

If that sounds like a lot of work, it’s because it is. At first. But fuck, it’s fascinating. And, it makes a difference. Rather than wading in the old patterns (panic, implode, cancel all my plans, fall into despair that I’ve let my friends down), I’m learning to talk myself into some new ones (examine, soothe, connect with others, take action). And it’s not endless analysis, because that would keep me trapped in the same mind that I’ve spent so much time in.

It’s examination with a bias towards intentional action, not reaction.

At this point it’s become a way I look at the world, and the entire reason I’m here. Because I want to share it with you.

This isn’t going to be an abstract examination of philosophical wisdom in modern-day life.

Although I would love that, my superpower is my ability to pull things out of abstraction and recognize how they play into everyday life. Each issue we’ll talk about an experience I’ve lived through (am living through) and the root questions and observations beneath it. Together, we’ll examine things like: identity, behavior, values, relationships, loss, change, and what our actions reveal about us.

Starting with Issue 08, you can expect a weekly essay paired with reflective prompts to examine the core questions and concepts and see how they might apply to your life. I’ll share what I’ve noticed, and you can decide what fits, what’s missing, and whether something deserves more consideration.

That’s what this is, really. It’s looking at the lives we’ve built and deciding what fits, what’s missing, and what we’re going to do about it. I can’t promise this is going to end with me reaching my final form and sharing an essay titled “10 steps to how I completely changed my life in my 30s and now I’m done, goodbye!” In fact, I can promise it won’t.

Examined living is a continued practice. As our lives change, as we change, things that once seemed real and necessary may all of a sudden turn to dust.

Life can change in an instant, but we don’t. At least not entirely. And that’s where the practice lives.

So, if this sounds like your kind of trip, please subscribe. I can’t wait to see where we end up.

Subscribe

Curious about what to expect and what’s coming next? Check out my About page for more details.

I don’t take the term “friendship” lightly. I have a high bar and a long lead time before I call someone a friend. And it’s not because I’m difficult. It’s because I know what I need from a friendship and what I’m willing to give. I’ll tell you all about my standards in a bit, but first, I want to start with the kind of friend I don’t want to be (at least not anymore).

I’ve known some of my closest friends almost my entire life. I’m talking about meeting in elementary school and at birthday parties where five of us could jump on the bed without risking a concussion.

And when one of my close friends was in what I considered a shitty relationship, I was perhaps a bit too vocal about my disdain for her boyfriend. I would tell her she could do better, remind her of everything he wasn’t giving her, and encourage her to break up with him anytime they were in a rough spot. I took it so far that when I found what I knew would be her perfect breakup card (it had a little jewel of a cactus with a note that said, “He was a prick. I never liked him anyways.”), I bought it for her. FIVE YEARS before they actually broke up.

In the end, I wasn’t wrong about her boyfriend. But I was wrong for being such a bitch about it. The good news is that our friendship outlasted their relationship, but that wasn’t by chance. I knew I needed to change.

We used to talk all the time. And by that I mean we’d have three-hour phone calls where you don’t even bother to put the person on mute when you have to pee. But all of a sudden, we started drifting apart. We talked less and less, and I had no idea what was going on in her life, much less her relationship. I don’t recall the exact sequence of events, but at some point, we had a hard talk about how I was being too judgmental and she didn’t feel like she could open up to me without being criticized or told what to do.

That hurt. And she was absolutely right. I was doing and saying what I thought was best for her, but I never actually stopped to ask her what she needed.

So I changed. And our relationship changed. I told her I’d support her however she needed and stop offering my opinions on her boyfriend unless she asked. That didn’t mean I was completely silent. I was still vocal when I was genuinely concerned for her, but I stopped criticizing her choices, which meant that I stopped criticizing her. I was loving her in the way she needed to be loved.

And truthfully, it was uncomfortable at first. I had to consciously edit my reactions, which took practice and effort. But it became clear that my shift toward being less judgmental and more supportive was changing all of my relationships for the better, not just our friendship.

I honestly don’t think she ever asked for my opinion on her boyfriend after that. But she did open back up to me, and we’re still close friends today.

Alright, so what do I mean when I call you my friend?

I mean that I’m willing to give you everything that I need in my friendships: time, energy, attention, (very) deep conversations, compassion, understanding, and room for change.

Now, I’m willing to give much more than I get. And sometimes I’ll need more than I’m able to give. It’s not about things being 50/50. It’s about cultivating reciprocal relationships that give me what I consider the bare minimum. And of course, this is completely subjective. Your list may look different than mine.

What’s odd is that I’m not sure I’ve ever explicitly told my friends what I need from them. I’ve kinda just expected them to know. And while I’ve asked a couple of friends what friendship means to them and what they need from me, I’m not going to pretend that’s a normal part of our conversations.

Once upon a time, in February, I was getting out of what was an incredibly tumultuous relationship.

We’d been on and off for almost three years, and although our breakups weren’t always public, they were chaotic for the people around us. At the end of the relationship, I was convinced that everything was my fault: what wasn’t working, why it ended, how it ended. It was all my fault. And that’s the story I told to my friends.

Without getting into all of the details, I’ll just tell you that I couldn’t convince most of my friends that everything was my fault. I tried, multiple times. And I’m not saying that to absolve myself of responsibility. It takes two to tango, and it took both of us to break our relationship. I’m making the point that my close friends saw things I couldn’t see at the time. They weren’t in the mess, even if they’d had a front-row seat.

My best friends listened. They let me cry, process, and rehash the same story until I could hear it differently. They told me hard truths when I needed them, but never rushed me to “get over it.” They gave me everything I needed without me ever having to ask.

I’m not sure if that was a complete fluke or if it’s the exact reason why we’re friends. I’m also not sure how normal it is to communicate our needs overtly, or whether our relationships naturally form or fall apart based on whether those needs are being met.

That said, I’ll admit that I’m a bit of a high-maintenance lady. So if I’m not getting what I need, I tend to be pretty vocal about it.

For whatever reason, other friends weren’t able to meet my needs. And I don’t hold it against them. It was messy. Everyone cared, but to what degree and with what reservations, I’ll probably never know. I’m not sure I really want to know.

I genuinely believe they thought they were being good friends. But what got in the way was everything we left unsaid. They offered what they thought I needed, but never actually asked me what I needed.

To be clear, nobody is obliged to give me what I need in a friendship, especially if meeting my needs would conflict with theirs or cross their boundaries in any way.

The friends who held me up still had boundaries. I could cry, but I couldn’t ask them to watch me drown in my sorrow, much less to drown with me. I could tell them my opinion, but I couldn’t insist that they had to agree with how I saw things. I think a big part of what held us together was their honesty about what they could give and what they needed from me. They didn’t dismiss their feelings or needs just because mine were louder.

I don’t think it’s anybody’s fault that some friendships felt strained. That’s a very natural part of a breakup. But the friendships that held steady got a hell of a lot stronger. Hell, I got stronger! And the blunt truth is that the other friendships weren’t giving me what I needed to begin with. Maybe they weren’t getting what they needed from me either. The breakup didn’t end them. But it did change them.

I used to think there was only one type of friendship…

Hence my high bar and long initiation process before I call someone a friend. But the past few years have taught me that just because some friendships are more casual than others doesn’t mean they’re any less valuable.

Some friendships have the depth and emotional intimacy to carry us through our toughest breakups times. Others are built around shared interests, convenience, work relationships, mutual friends, or simply being in the same season of life.

Different friendships can open different parts of you. And if we’re being truthful, sometimes not all of you is welcome in every friendship. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing!

I’m the friend who thinks everyone looks more kissable after a cocktail or two. And those can be virgin cocktails. But I know which of my friends welcome that energy and which would prefer I never mention that again. Keeping myself in line isn’t being any less honest about who I am. It’s being more respectful of who they are. They’re my friends, and because I love them, I have absolutely no problem adjusting to their needs.

This brings me back to the question of how overtly we need to state our needs in friendships. I don’t tally how each friend’s needs overlap with mine or where I need to adjust. But I think, I hope, that I’m walking a respectful line of being authentic about who I am while giving them the space to be who they are.

Just because a friendship isn’t everything you want it to be doesn’t mean you have to choose between rushing to repair it or lighting the entire thing on fire. Sometimes friendships don’t need to be fixed. They just need to be accepted for what they are. That may mean adjusting your expectations for a period or deciding that, for your own sake, it’s best to pull away.

Sometimes the most loving thing you can do for a friendship is to stop asking it for things it’s already shown you it can’t give.

Subscribe to Sydney Buchanan for new reflections each Sunday.

Subscribe now

Most of us know at least one person we’d avoid taking a vacation with at all costs. And it’s not because they’re a bad person. It’s because they would meticulously plan every detail, including bathroom breaks, with no room for anyone else’s opinion. To put it lightly, planning a vacation like it’s a military campaign can put people just a little on edge.

Personally, I am a free spirit on vacation. Untethered from restraint, finances, or the concept of a breakfast reservation. But, when it comes to my daily life, oh man do I have a plan. I’m rarely a “one-step-at-a-time person.” I’m a “here’s the entire map, AND I made a topographic map too, just in case” person.

I don’t plan because I want to wreak havoc on someone else’s day. Nobody likes a dictator. But, for me, plans create a sense of safety. Which means that sometimes a disruption feels less like a minor inconvenience and more like a complete implosion.

So, I call myself a planner, but sometimes what I really mean is “I need to know what’s gonna happen for me to feel okay.”

Sometimes labels are really just euphemisms.

I’m not just a planner. I have other labels too. I’m also independent, kind, blunt, curious, ambitious, and a bit of a perfectionist, among other things. And all of those labels mean something to me.

• “I’m easygoing” can also mean I learned that expressing my needs creates friction.

• “I’m loyal” can also mean I’m scared the people I love will leave me.

• “I have high standards” can also mean I was taught that love was based on performance.

These are not binary definitions. You’re not completely carefree or continually suppressing your needs for others. But, the identities we define ourselves by usually reveal something deeper. What do we need? What do we value? What do we think we deserve?

For me, being analytical and planning has practical applications. But, it’s also my way of trying to create a scenario where I can anticipate everything, so I feel safe. It’s not all bad, but it gets heavy when I don’t separate my skill (planning) from my belief (I must know what’s going to happen or I’m in danger).

And the real reason I define myself as a planner isn’t because of what I actually need today. It’s because of what I needed in the past.

Essentially, I’m rooting one of my core identities in a collection of experiences that happened decades ago. And, the cherry on top is that I’m still living as if it’s the present moment. The more I define myself as a planner, the more intense the connection between preparation and safety becomes. At this point, it’s as if I’ve made a contract with myself that I need to plan to feel safe.

The deals we make with ourselves.

News to nobody: Our childhood has a massive impact on our beliefs, emotions, and behavior patterns! Things that seemed true when we were younger, even if they came from a one-off experience, quickly become rules. And rules become facts. And facts become unspoken contracts we live by.

After a lot of reading and a few visits with the therapy fairy, I’ve discovered a whole list of contracts I’d made with myself:

• I need to know what I’m doing before I start anything new.

• Anything less than 9/10 is average. And I can’t be average, or nobody will see me.

• If anything goes wrong, it’s because I am inherently incapable. If I were capable, it wouldn’t have gone wrong.

Great self-talk, right?

I’ll spare you the “everything is our parents’ fault” tirade (because there’s no need to argue facts), but a lot of our self-talk comes from those childhood experiences. That doesn’t mean you can’t change it, but I’m personally convinced that monologue will always be in my head, even as it gets quieter over the years.

This may sound a little backwards, but sometimes what objectively happens matters a lot less than the impact it has on us. We all learn through repetition.

So I learned. And I encoded. And evidently I made a series of contracts with myself. Contracts I thought were just simple facts of life.

Beliefs masquerading as rules masquerading as facts may very well be part of the human condition. But that doesn’t mean we can’t question them. Particularly when the identity contracts that worked for our younger selves start bumping into who we are today.

I thought Excel spreadsheets were my only creative endeavor.

I love getting into the weeds and mapping out details of…well…everything! So naturally I’m an Excel nerd. A beautiful spreadsheet with custom formulas, color coding, and proper cell formatting—what a work of art. 🖤 And, while I can appreciate that you may not think a spreadsheet is beautiful, I’m sure you’ll agree that, as long as it works, it gets the job done.

Now, writing is not an Excel spreadsheet. There’s a real chance that I’ll create something that doesn’t resonate with anyone but me. And, no matter how much I want to plan and prepare, the only way for me to grow is to try. Without a plan.

Or rather, without the safety blanket I’ve been hauling around for the past few decades which, did I mention, is getting heavy?!

According to my rules, starting without a plan or having a plan not work registers as a failure. My failure. But I know I’m not alone on this island. As our wants change, as we change, the labels that gave us meaning can start to feel more like a box we’re forcing ourselves into.

• “I’m easygoing” can feel constricting when you have a strong opinion.

• “I’m loyal” can start to hurt when your loyalty isn’t valued, or returned.

And it’s not about whether an identity is good or bad. It’s more a question of how well an identity we’ve come to define ourselves by still fits who we are today. The more we treat something as a hard rule to be obeyed, regardless of our circumstances, the less freedom we’ll have to try something new. Something different.

Also, we aren’t the only ones enforcing these identities. I can almost guarantee you have at least one person in your life who is pretty damn committed to seeing you as the person you were. Or imagining that someday over the rainbow you’ll magically become the person they want you to be.

How do you know which version of you they’re looking at?

“Why the f*ck is it so hard to just be ourselves?” Well, one of the reasons is because people hold onto different versions of us. Sometimes those are old and outdated versions, like the parent who still treats their adult child like a teenager. And sometimes those are versions of us that never really existed, like the ex who insists that one day, you’ll become the person they always knew you could be.

How do you tell the friend who knows they can always count on you that they need to be more responsible and stop using you as their ride home?

How do you tell your boss who sees you as their go-to person that just because you worked overtime on the last two projects doesn’t mean that this is your new life?

Relationships can start to feel strained when the person you’re becoming no longer aligns with the person they thought you were. And, I hate to break it to you, but this goes both ways. We all have someone in our lives who we still see as the person they used to be.

What happens when we see things differently?

Personally, I struggle with being misunderstood. I try to be as articulate as I can so that my words and actions aren’t misconstrued. Which, let’s be honest, is a fairly lofty goal. Especially because, despite our best efforts, sometimes words come out wrong. Or people interpret them differently than we intended.

This Substack is my first creative project outside those sexy Excel spreadsheets (there’s a fun tongue twister). And, as I’m getting started, I’m asking my closest friends for feedback, and they’re giving me their honest opinions. But that doesn’t mean they necessarily agree with what I am trying to do. Frankly, I’m still figuring out what I’m trying to do! Which means that, sometimes, I’m stuck with the feeling of being misunderstood.

Cue a song that may stop a good number of you from reading or listening to the rest of this piece: “Stop Crying Your Heart Out” by Oasis.

The lyric, “take what you need, and be on your way,” has always had a special place in my heart. And, that’s exactly what I am learning to apply here. Accepting my friends’ feedback doesn’t mean that I need to surrender to it. I can take what’s useful and leave the rest. Maybe it’s not what I planned. Maybe I’m misunderstood. Maybe I just need to let go of these labels?

But what does it all mean?

Please strap in for a journey down the rabbit hole that is my need for perfect understanding.

My therapy fairy helped me find the words to describe what I am actually afraid of:

I am afraid that if someone misunderstands me, I will disappear. Who I actually am will cease to exist and I’ll have to live the rest of my life as their version of me.

I’m aware that’s some abstract shit.

So, here’s the grounded version: Thanks to how I was raised, I feel compelled to explain who I am. Otherwise I’m afraid that nobody will see the real me. Because, for a time, nobody did.

Yes, the way I describe my fear might sound odd, but the desire underneath it is something we all share. We don’t just want to be part of the group. We want to be seen and valued for who we are. Which can become tremendously difficult when the person we’re growing into no longer matches the person we were.

I built my identity around being someone who is so meticulous and precise that I could prevent others from misunderstanding me. The irony is that I ended up confining myself to what I defined as “a planner.” Now, trying something new that I can’t plan for isn’t just a fun little hobby. It’s a challenge to one of my core identities.

I don’t think the solution is to abandon one of my sharpest skills, but I probably need to stop defining myself by it.

So, what does “different” look like?

I don’t know if you’ve ever gone down a “but what’s the root fear underneath it all?” rabbit hole, but I’m sure you can agree that we all just want to be accepted for who we are. Not for who we were. Not for who someone wants us to be. And not as some outdated version of who we think we should be.

“Take what you need, and be on your way.”

Take what you need from the identity that once protected you. Take what you need from the person you used to be. Take what you need from those you have around you.

And let the rest go.

I wanna hold your hand.

Last song reference, I promise! This whole growth thing can feel uncomfortable, especially when we’re in the middle of it. I’m doing my best to hold my own hand as I discover new answers to that million-dollar question: “Who am I?” That doesn’t mean I don’t want someone else to hold it. It just means that whether I get support, or silence, or misunderstanding, I know I am going to be OK.

Aside from literally holding my own hand, I also like to give myself overly dramatic pep talks in the mirror (a real “coach” vibe) and end with an encouraging pat on the ass to get myself moving. It helps me feel like I am still here, even when I’m not meeting my 9/10 standard.

Notice I didn’t say “old” standard, because I can’t guarantee I won’t reach for reassurance through some of those ingrained self-contracts. In fact, I’m certain I will. But, each time I do, which hopefully is less and less often, I’ll be curious to see whether they still fit.

Subscribe to Sydney Buchanan for new explorations each Sunday.

Subscribe now

I’m a creature of habit, and one of those habits is crafting my daily morning latte with my “yes, I know I’m high-maintenance” espresso machine. My routine is simple. I grind my beans, prep the shot, foam the milk, and slowly come back down from whatever morning delusions or dream state I’m wrapped in. This morning, though, I wasn’t quite awake. I’d had five hours of sleep, my body was tense, and my mind was exhausted from the spiral I’d gone through the night before.

I was robotically performing my espresso routine when a spark shot through my mind. It was Descartes of all things. “I think, therefore I am.” A part of my mind was speaking to me. And, as an only child who lives alone, one-on-one conversations aren’t exactly a rarity. Almost immediately, something in me answered, “I think, therefore I am, thinking.”

Sometimes we become so consumed by our thoughts that we start to blur the lines between ourselves, the thinker, and the thoughts, the objects of our awareness. For Descartes, the act of thinking was evidence that there was a thinker. For me, my thinking mind has a way of convincing me I am my thoughts. And my answer, “I think, therefore I am, thinking,” seemed to be my subconscious mind’s way of telling me I was getting lost in them.

I’d had an epiphany. But to give some context as to why adding a word to a well-known quote felt so important, let’s unpack what happened the night before.

Until that morning, I considered myself a firm believer that a good plan is the answer to almost all of life’s problems.

The saying “proper planning prevents piss-poor performance” not only made me laugh but felt like a solid rubric for my life. If I make a plan, I can follow that plan, and then things will go as planned. Simple!

On a practical level, planning makes sense. Having a rough draft of how to get from A to Z increases the chances you won’t get lost mid-alphabet. Add a few contingency plans in your back pocket and you’ve got all the security you need. But the key here is “rough draft.” And I wasn’t making a rough draft. I had planned my full operational strategy for the next few issues, and I was ready to run my first test.

The test included a detailed research phase to discover how to increase visibility and traffic to my journal. The point of writing this is so someone reads it. I can, and do, scream into the void on my own. But this is something I want to share. So I crafted the workflow, downloaded a new app, began the research, and made some genuinely valuable discoveries.

And that’s the entire point of research, isn’t it? Stepping back to grade five science for a moment: I was taught that we make a hypothesis, do some research to test it, then allow the results to inform our conclusions. What I didn’t realize was that, at some point between grade five and now, I started confusing my hypothesis for something I was committed to proving rather than an idea I wanted to evaluate.

So, what did I find?

I found a writer who was quite literally living my dream. She was creating the exact type of content I wanted to create, for the same audience I’d hoped to reach, all with a much leaner and more effective method. She was becoming enormously successful in a very short period of time, and her work was (is) fantastic.

It’s easy to dismiss someone’s success if we feel like they don’t deserve it. Maybe it’s nepotism, family money, or just someone who has had all the lucky breaks. That wasn’t the case here.

She was clearly putting in the work, wasn’t taking any shortcuts, and somehow made it all look easy. Meanwhile, I’m in the mud, trying to figure out how to put one foot in front of the other.

Yes, I was (am) inspired by her work, but it was a stark contrast to my own. The entire system I’d built around the approach I was deeply committed to was being contradicted by the data in front of me.

I’d arrived at a massive “aha” moment, but the discovery wasn’t anything like I’d pictured. I thought I was going to find something that would show me how I could subtly change my approach so my method would be successful. Instead, I discovered that there was a better method altogether, and it was nothing like what I’d envisioned.

Here comes my evening spiral.

Part of me recognized that my research was, by all accounts, successful. I’d found a new approach that could help me with my content and someone who was modeling how to do it. All the work I had done had led me here, and even if it didn’t turn out the way I planned, it was still part of the process.

But the other part of me, my affectionate inner critic, had a lot more to say and was a lot louder. She was clear that, had I known what I was doing, I would have been able to create work as incredible as the other writer’s, and I wouldn’t have so publicly embarrassed myself.

Fear of failure is real. Fear of judgment is real. Putting yourself out there can be terrifying. And the results are never guaranteed.

I knew this. I know this. And yet, all I could hear was my inner critic asking, “Who do you think you are?” Did I really think I was worthy of someone paying attention to what I had to say? Why would I think that?

Make no mistake, I see the flawed logic. I know it’s okay to dive into the deep end, not know what you’re doing, and turn out to be wrong. But, in those moments, logic can start to give way to emotions. And emotions are a fantastic fuel for even more irrational thinking.

I blew right past incessant thinking and dove into the open waters of mistaking every thought and feeling for me. I wasn’t thinking. I was the thinking. I wasn’t feeling. I was the feeling. I couldn’t look at the scenario objectively and recognize that being wrong about something didn’t mean I was a failure. I was living the story directly. Which meant that I was wrong. I was the failure.

So I reached for a safety blanket.

I am no stranger to late-night spirals and I have an arsenal of tools ready to meet them. But that’s not to say I always pick the most appropriate tools for the job. My weapons of choice for the evening were my tarot deck and Arrested Development.

I am a data-driven person. But when I am overwhelmed and can’t make sense of what’s in front of me, I rely on my tarot deck to help guide the way. I’m aware these are near polar opposites, but that’s the exact kind of fuel a spiral runs on.

I stated my intention clearly before I pulled my card. It went something like this:

“The direction of my work is changing and I realize that I need to make peace with being uncertain about the future. But I feel like I’m failing. Objectively, I know that I’m new to this, I’m doing my best, and I need to treat myself better. I truly believe that the lesson here is to keep moving forward and not get stuck on every detail. Please tell me what card I should lean on for guidance this week.”

The card: Justice. Which, in short, reflects on cause and effect and accountability. It’s a “you reap what you sow” sort of message. Which, ironically, I already knew going in.

I let that rattle around in my head while I turned on Arrested Development and began my third consecutive rewatch. I’ll be honest, I’m not sure how many full episodes I’ve actually paid attention to, but I know I feel better when I fall asleep laughing.

An hour passed and I was still wide awake. It was now 2:00 a.m., and I needed more clarity. So, back to the tarot deck I went. This time I was brief and just asked for a card to help clarify my interpretation of the Justice card.

The result: the Hanged Man, reversed. This one relates to self-imposed resistance and refusal to let go.

If this writing thing doesn’t turn out, I am seriously considering a future in tarot. The second card gave me the relief I needed, and I fell asleep within 10 minutes.

Now, make no mistake, I also see the flawed logic in trusting my tarot deck to give me answers I already knew. But that’s the rub of all of this. We can be completely aware of what is happening and still feel trapped inside of it. Self-awareness doesn’t necessarily separate us from the spiral we’re stuck in.

For me, self-awareness is usually part of the spiral. I knew I needed distance from my thoughts. I knew it at 12:00 a.m. And I still knew it at 2:00 a.m. But I wasn’t doing anything about it.

Let’s go back to the kitchen.

Five hours have passed. I’m foaming my latte. And suddenly I’m shaken from my half-conscious state by the thought, “I think, therefore I am.” At that moment, I filled in the blank I needed. “I think, therefore I am, thinking.”

I am thinking. I am not my thoughts.

Admittedly, I didn’t get much further than that. I didn’t solve my insecurities. I didn’t launch into a whole new strategy to approach my writing. And I haven’t figured out a foolproof way to ensure that, if I try hard enough, I will get what I want.

I don’t have any of those answers. The only answer I came away with was:

Who do I think I am?

Sydney fucking Buchanan.

Subscribe to Sydney Buchanan for new explorations each Sunday.

Subscribe now

We’ve all had a moment where the words coming out of our mouths couldn’t be further from what we really want to say. And I get it. We can’t tell the barista who’s taken a solid five minutes to make our latte to “hurry the fuck up, I don’t wanna be here!” But wouldn’t it feel good if we could?

Question: How much of your personality is actually just good PR?

Obviously we can’t walk around spouting every thought that goes through our heads to every person who passes by. As a Canadian, I heed the call of social conformity to be kind and smile to everyone I meet. And honestly, I don’t mind it! Everyone loves a friendly Canadian. But what happens when we start forming our entire personality around what other people think of us, rather than just being our damn selves?

Why do we start acting weird when we want somebody to like us?

We’ve all had a moment where we were trying to impress someone and ended up coming off as a complete psycho. We want them to like us so badly that we think we need to use the right words, or have the right outfit, or know the right people for them to even notice us. We create these imaginary standards we think they’re holding us to and then do everything we can to meet them.

What’s the weirdest thing you’ve done to try and get someone to like you?

I once joked with a girl crush that if I didn’t buy anything on our shopping trip, I would get my nipples pierced. And you best believe that when she called me out for not buying anything, I doubled down and got them pierced that day. That’s how much I wanted to impress her! It was a seriously painful lesson on the cost of doing something just to impress another person. Spoiler alert: It did not get her to like me any more.

Crushes may be the universal metric for just how weird we get when we want someone to like us, but we do it in other scenarios too. Whatever school, work, or social club you’re part of, you want to fit in. And you’ve probably said or done something that is not “you” on your quest to be accepted. It’s normal, and sometimes necessary, but it gets exhausting when that becomes another personality you have to manage.

Who decided on this ideal version of you?

There are loads of psychology articles that explain where your inner critic comes from, why it’s there, what it needs, and all that jazz. I am not an expert on the mechanics of it all, but I am very well acquainted with my inner critic. She loves to constantly and loudly tell me what others think of me and the standards I should be living up to so they’ll accept me. The more time passes, the more I realize that her standards always seem to be just above where I am.

Without veering into a diary entry, I’ll just say I realized that my inner critic made it hard for me to be myself, even when I was by myself. It took some conscious effort to untangle my voice from hers and recognize that the ideal version I was holding myself to wasn’t mine. We do that same thing with other people. We create a version of ourselves that they’ll approve of and then become that person when we’re around them.

But truly, do you like the version of yourself those people approve of?

Do you even like those people?

What if being yourself is not a fixed experience?

There are so many layers of what it means to be human and so many layers of what it means to be you. Realistically, we can’t show every person we meet every single side of ourselves. Mainly because it’s probably completely inappropriate, but also because some things don’t need to be broadcast for all to hear. Ironically, I am doing some broadcasting with this piece. For those of you who know me personally, I’m pretty sure a good number of you didn’t know I had my nipples pierced, or that I like girls. Surprise! That’s a side of myself that, up until now, I haven’t been very vocal about. And that’s okay.

I wasn’t being any less myself by not sharing every piece of me with everyone. And you’re not being any less yourself if you choose to show up in different ways in different relationships because of what’s appropriate.

I don’t think that being yourself means giving everyone access to every side of you. But the version they get should still be a reflection of who you actually are. Not who you think you should be.

Subscribe to Sydney Buchanan for new explorations each Sunday.

Subscribe now

Editor’s note: This piece was published in the early stages of finding my voice. For a less serious, more intimate POV, check out Issue 03 and beyond. If you like serious, message me! I love a good point-counterpoint debate.

We usually recognize what a change has taken before we understand how it is going to affect us. The event may happen in a moment, but its effects continue to unfold. This week’s journal looks at why change can feel like loss and why understanding it takes time.

How would you define your relationship with change? To say that it’s complex and present in all facets of life feels too vague because it doesn’t describe what the relationship actually is. Okay, maybe those aren’t the words you’d use to describe it. But I’m curious, what does change look like to you? What does it feel like for you?

Change seems to be full of contradictions. It’s dynamic and unpredictable, but can feel fixed and inevitable. It’s powerful, yet subtle. Even our attitude toward change shifts depending on the form it takes and how it impacts us. I recently found out that one of my closest friends is moving, and while I’m excited for her to start a new chapter, there’s also a bittersweet feeling I can’t ignore. Her life is changing and, inevitably, our friendship will too.

Regardless of how we feel about it, change requires us to leave something behind. A relationship. A dream. The person we were just a moment ago. Whether or not it feels like a loss, in a way, it is. Something isn’t coming with us. But that doesn’t mean we have the full picture. Change can’t be fully understood the moment it happens. We can usually see what we’re losing before we understand how the change is going to affect us. But that doesn’t mean loss is all there is.

We crave what’s familiar —

Our relationship with change is shaped by our attachments and the meaning we derive from them. Attachments to others, to identity, to routines, to an imagined future. Our sense of safety is often tied to knowing what to expect. Novelty can be intriguing, but most of us find comfort in consistency and routine. However temporary, a disruption can make loss more apparent and deepen our identification with what we’re losing.

It may seem counterintuitive, but we develop a sense of safety from what we call “normal,” even if we don’t benefit from it. We can still feel the loss of what was familiar, even if it wasn’t ideal or practical. Whether the change registers as a loss is subjective. What’s not subjective is that we cannot fully acknowledge a changed reality if we refuse to recognize something has ended.

When good news stirs up mixed feelings —

Of course, change can also come as a welcome gift. But that’s not to say there isn’t a loss. It just doesn’t get your attention right away, if at all. That immediate sigh of relief that comes when dinner plans you didn’t actually want to keep are canceled. Your good friend sharing that they not only got a promotion, but are getting a sizable pay increase. Both sound like good news! Yet, even these seemingly positive events can create a sense of uncertainty. You can begin questioning what led to the change. Did they cancel dinner plans for everyone just because they knew you didn’t want to be there? You can also start to question yourself in relation to the change. Is your friend’s promotion a signal that you should be doing more in your career? You’re not losing anything tangible in either scenario, but you still don’t know what the change means or how it may affect you. That lack of clarity can sometimes feel like a lack of control.

When uncertainty is all we’re certain of —

An unexpected change can leave us feeling powerless. When parts of our lives we thought were within our control change in ways we weren’t prepared for, it’s hard to predict how we’ll react.

There are times when ongoing uncertainty becomes a simple fact of life. In my early twenties, I was diagnosed with a chronic condition that substantially changed what my life would look like. Nothing in the first month of treatment could have prepared me for what was to come. The interventions weren’t working as expected, my body wasn’t reacting as expected, and I was advised to let go of any expectations and accept that I would have a “reduced quality of life.” I put that in quotes because I will never forget when my specialist said it to me.

Here’s the thing: I’m not unique. You don’t need to have a chronic condition to have experienced a version of this story: losing your sense of normal, learning that a plan isn’t going to solve the problem, or realizing that who you are is not who you were and your life isn’t going to look the way you’d imagined.

I’ve lived with my condition for over a decade. My daily life still involves constant symptom management, and there are still changes! When I was younger, my uncertainty about these kinds of changes turned into hopelessness. I couldn’t imagine a future that didn’t look like the present. While it’s still true that nothing can undo what’s been done, I am a fundamentally different person from that twenty-one-year-old sitting in a hospital room, being told they weren’t going to get any better. I also have fundamentally different views on how my life was changed by my condition, and they’re not all bad.

Some things take time —

Whatever sets a change in motion can happen in an instant, but the ripple effect takes time to develop. We make assumptions about what a change means based on the limited information we have at the time. What initially appears to be a small change may later reveal a greater loss or opportunity than we anticipated; the same is true of what first appears to be an obvious gain. As time passes, a change may expose costs that were unforeseeable in the beginning.

The saying “change doesn’t happen overnight” is exactly right. We need time to process and reconcile what happened, then decide how we are going to adapt. Put simply: the event that sparks a change can happen in an instant, but we need time to understand it and figure out how to live with what’s changed. Which brings us to everyone’s favorite A-word: acceptance.

Acceptance and what comes next —

Acceptance, in its simplest form, is acknowledging what is true. It doesn’t mean that we agree with it, that we want it to happen, or that we won’t oppose it. Some changes, some losses, are irreversible. Others are temporary. How we respond to change plays a significant role in how we experience it. Once we accept that something has changed, we can respond to what is happening in front of us. Not what we wish was happening.

Part of responding to a change means learning how to live with it. Sometimes it involves trying to change it back, if that is a realistic option. But if we can’t undo what happened, we may need to adjust our course or create something new.

I mentioned that my understanding of how I would be affected by my condition has transformed significantly since my diagnosis and early treatments. It took me years to accept that my condition was not going away. I spent that time fighting, searching, medicating, and meditating before I finally accepted what was. And once I did, my life changed again. My condition didn’t go away, but it no longer defined every part of how I saw myself or my life. I started to learn how I could adjust my daily life so that I did not feel defined by the “reduced quality of life” I had been prescribed.

When we remain committed to a past version of reality, we are forced to continually confront the difference between what is and what we believe should still be. Our relationship with change becomes adversarial. Speaking directly from my experience, the longer I resisted accepting what was changing, the more I suffered.

Who doesn’t love a good process?

So, how would I describe my relationship with change? Truly, my entire concept of change transformed when I embraced it as a process rather than any single moment. It doesn’t arrive in any one action, word, or event. It is ongoing, and I’ve come to accept that I may not understand it in its entirety until enough time has passed for things to play out. Really, I may never know its full impact. And that’s okay.

Sometimes change feels like a loss because it is a loss. But as long as I’m living beyond any one moment, I have learned that there is more to come. And there’s at least a chance that what’s coming is better than what is, maybe even better than what was.

Accepting change as a process doesn’t make it inherently easy or positive. But it reminds me to temper my judgments, loosen my assumptions, and lean on what I know, or at least believe, to be true.

Subscribe to Sydney Buchanan for new explorations every Sunday.

Subscribe now

Editor’s note: This piece was published in the early stages of finding my voice. For a less serious, more intimate POV, check out Issue 03 and beyond. If you like serious, message me! I love a good point-counterpoint debate.

We spend a surprising amount of time trying to understand ourselves. We replay conversations, explain people's behavior, and search for reasons behind what happened. But understanding isn't always the same as experiencing. This week's journal explores what happens when we explain our experiences before we've fully felt them.

Understanding isn’t the same as experiencing —

It’s a natural part of the human experience to be fully present in a moment, only to have that moment interrupted by a thought. The thinking mind has a way of slipping into the background so naturally that we stop noticing it’s there. Whether we’re genuinely trying to understand something or are simply distracted, this pattern becomes so ingrained that we begin identifying with our thoughts and accepting them as part of the present moment. With enough practice, we fall into the trap of mistaking intellectual understanding for lived experience.

How this plays out in real life —

Imagine you’re out with a friend. Your visit runs a little longer than expected, so you call your partner to let them know you’ll be late for dinner. The moment you hang up, your friend says they could hear your partner’s tone and waits for your reaction. You don’t hesitate to answer. Your first instinct is to explain that your partner is always exhausted after work and that you being late adds stress to their day. You may even feel guilty and start wondering what you could have done differently. Among all your thoughts is a much quieter, almost gnawing feeling that something isn’t right. You can’t quite name it, maybe you don’t want to name it, but it’s there.

You’re quick to reply. You’re used to your partner being irritable after work and have already justified it. Your inner dialogue tells you “They have a high-pressure job and need time to themselves to unwind. It makes sense they’d be annoyed if your schedule interrupts that.” So you work around their needs. You understand their reasons and accept the scenario as it is.

You don’t dwell on that gnawing feeling. Your explanation bypasses it entirely, leaving it unrecognized and unaddressed. Their reasons were enough.

We explain before we experience —

“Did he have a tone? I didn’t notice. He’s always exhausted after work.”

Some experiences are too much for us to process emotionally. In extreme cases, we revert to our survival brain. More commonly, our mind skips the uncomfortable emotion and jumps into rationalization, allowing us to explain a situation without having truly felt it.

Why? Because it’s easier than addressing the feeling. Our explanations are comforting because they give us a sense of control. We think that if we understand something, we can influence it. We prefer to interpret events in ways that give us power over the narrative because it feels safer than confronting what we’re actually feeling.

We often mistake our interpretations for reality —

“Did he have a tone? I didn’t notice. He has a high-pressure job. If he sounds tense it usually just means he’s stressed from work.”

Our interpretation, the way we perceive an experience, impacts how we make sense of it. What seem like objective questions (what happened, why did it happen, when did it start, whose fault was it) become nuanced by our point of view. Our point of view then becomes our reality: the baseline we measure against.

We’re inclined to adopt a point of view that protects us, or how we see ourselves, from unpleasant truths or experiences. That inclination also makes us more likely to justify and support things that are familiar, that we already believe, than to accept things that go against our preconceived notions. Rationalization can keep us safe from the experience in front of us and the deeper truths it can reveal. Accurate or not, our interpretations cement our understanding of “what happened.”

We mistake understanding for acceptance —

“Did he have a tone? I didn’t notice. I mean, it makes sense if he’s annoyed. I gave him really short notice.”

Curiosity dies when we believe we fully understand something. There is no reason to question or explore what we already know is true. Once we think we understand something, we begin to live in that reality and accept things as they are. Except we aren’t accepting things as they are. We’re accepting them as we see them.

How it impacts us —

There’s a cost to being truly present. Being open to an experience can be uncomfortable when it challenges our point of view. But what’s the cost of not emotionally connecting to the present moment? If you mistake intellectual understanding for lived experience, you’ll end up experiencing your explanations, not reality. You’ll become fluent in your interpretations and yet somehow feel like a stranger in your own life. In searching for an explanation, you’ll miss the feeling you were trying to understand.

Subscribe to Sydney Buchanan to receive future journal entries in your inbox.

Subscribe now