I’ve done it. I’ve dropped the “but”.
I started going to Berlin regularly in 2010. It was, and still is, such a cool city. It’s got a sexy restaurant and bar scene, mind-blowing monuments, an intensely complicated history that birthed an intensely fascinating culture, lots of music and dancing and life. It’s clean, organized, a little standoffish. Underground, gritty, confusing. I absolutely loved it.
Oftentimes I would declare my affection for Berlin out loud with the following phrase. “I love Berlin. I would live here in a heartbeat, but it gets too cold.”
And so [until now] I’ve never lived there.
And while I don’t regret a thing in my life (Well just 3 things, I believe I’ve mentioned 2 of them) I do find myself stumped at how closed-minded I had been with that declaration. Here I was, frolicking through one of the greatest cities I’d been to in my life and I couldn’t see myself living there because it got cold? Even for a year?
At the time, I identified so hard as a tropical girl who relished in high, humid temps. I “needed” to live under palm trees and listen to the wafting sounds of Cuban salsa outside my window as I drifted off to sleep. I was a Miami girl through and through. For whatever reason, I couldn’t allow myself the space to consider that maybe, just maybe, a really warm jacket was all I needed to dive headfirst into the quirky Berliner lifestyle and add yet another explosive experience to my colorful collection.
It annoys me to think I was so inflexible.
Why is there always a “but”? I want to start a business, but… I want to go to China, but… I want to date him, but…I want to be healthier, but…
Whatever comes after the “but” is simply resistance, stubbornness, narrow-mindedness. It’s an excuse to avoid the temporary discomfort of change.
Most of the time your but is “overcomeable”. However, it’s emboldening when you do. Drop the resistance. Crack your mind open, create space to do more, see more, try more. Remove the but and consider a different ending to the sentence.
It’s kind of corny but why not say it out loud? You’ll feel the energetic shift.
I want to start a business, but…
VS.
I want to start a business.
Now the sentence is open-ended, open-minded.
Doesn’t it feel different? Doesn’t it encourage you to find a solution to fulfill the dream?
I’ve done it. I’ve dropped the but. Which is why I’m writing this from the sometimes-cold, sometimes-rainy, currently sunny and magnificent yet water-lacking metropolis of Mexico City that I fall more in love with every day.
This isn’t to say I don’t find myself “butting” a lot. I’m just more aware when I do, I recognize it more quickly and find it easier to break the pattern.
Hope this helps.
If it doesn’t help, why not pre-order my book and instead of breaking patterns, lose yourself in a sexy, sassy memoir of that “nomad life” before Google Maps existed?
With love,
Bethany
