From Being A People-Pleaser To Choosing Me: How I Learnt To Set Boundaries

Do you remember a dark night in your life? One that made you beg to God while holding the tears in your eyes, the bareness of your soul staring at the nothingness of joy, and the plethora of atrocious gloom that the mirror so truly reflects?

Do you recollect moments in your life that changed you forever? The ones that force you to embrace the metamorphosis that was beckoning its call long ago?

The one that breathes a new person into you, the one who ceases to remain the same as the you who was once smiling through the pain, finding goodness in everything and embracing every lie with a pinch of humanness.

The Dark Night That Breaks and Builds You

​The version of you that had to die so that the one with more awareness and less emotion could forge its being in the truth of your reality.

You do not know the tale of battles that one has fought with their being to be this calm, to be this being of themselves they present to the world. 

The hellfire they walked through with serenity in their hearts and no heed for revenge makes them into who they are.

And if you dare to add chaos or malice into their life, even when their hearts are pure, trust me, something changes in their life. Something changes in them, and that is what I call the reckoning, the fate that finally awakens them into the person they are meant to be.

​For the longest time, I remember being a sweet soul who would make space for people, smile at strangers, ask how their day was, greet everyone with the warmth of the sunshine, and accommodate beyond my needs.

I was often called an honest and nice person, one who listens, one who understands, the one who holds secrets sworn off to topmost secrecy, one who loved with all her heart and did not expect anything in return, the one who smiled even though she was in pain, the one who waited for the other when they tied their shoelaces.

​I was the person who made space for everyone, who held the door and forged a confidant to many. But guess what, when I needed someone, none of these people were there. It is in these moments of sheer hurt, agony and pain that you realise the ones who are truly yours.

The ones who hold you through the despair of the night, the ones who leave the world aside for you. These are the ones you should keep close; the rest of the world can get lost in their own selfish ways.

I had a moment of a breakdown, the one that paved the way for a breakthrough, the one that finally made me realise that I no longer need to care about what others think of me, that I no longer need to explain myself to people who don't deserve even a fraction of my truth.

I no longer need to hold space for people who won't even bother to think for a second about the whereabouts of my existence.

​The Moment of Reckoning

Trust me, you will be better off alone than to be with people who drain the soul out of you. We live in a world where meaningless conversations, casual hookups, cheating, hurting people on the go and then calling it nonchalant and shallow trines are celebrated and looked up to.

This is what social media calls cool and the trend of the hour, and trust me, I am better off being called a boring person who everyone does not like than a person who pretends to be cool just for being included.

I embrace the joy of missing out. I don't want to live in half-lived promises that only flex for the gram, I don't want to have conversations, or relationships or friendships that last only over the surface and are not aligned with the soul.

I do not live life for external validation or to be included in rooms that drain the life out of me; I would much rather live a life that appears unmeaningful to others but excites me to my core, the one that makes me alive.

That is not to say I want to become heartless or cold; I simply realised not everyone deserves my kindness or my time, and my happiness will no longer depend on anyone else. I am still a good person, but this time with my boundaries intact, and I am being my priority.

​I often hear everyone around me say it is not that deep, and all I do is smile, knowing in my heart it is that deep.

It is the depth of my soul that makes me who I am, the content I watch, the people I surround myself with, the conversations I hold, the opportunities I embrace, the way I speak, the relationships I cherish and the people I trust; it all forges me into who I am and trust me, honey, it is that deep. 

The reckoning that awakened me made me realise how shallow in every facet is being glorified, and the ones with depth and truth are being called boring.

So here is me- the one who loves with all her heart, passionately embraces every endeavour, holds the people she loves close and fiercely, and now beholds her boundaries fearlessly- gracefully accepting her boredom.

In a world full of surface-level people who are called cool, embrace being the boring, weirdo you are.

​Authored by Hridya Sharma. Views expressed by the author are their own.