(Necessary context: we arrived in Finland 3 months ago to start our volunteering journey in an Eco-village. Lucky us we had the chance to learn and grow nonstop. The other 5 volunteers and I get along surprisingly well in a village where your mattress is the only private area.)
It has been incredibly easy to lose sight of my own plan of what I would focus on in this eco-village. In a living situation like this, my daily structure and self-discipline have frequently dissolved. When constantly surrounded by the noise, choices, and visible progress of others, it is easier to drift into collective tasks or happenings rather than to schedule time for personal things. For me, there is a constant friction, some moments I crave alone-time to reflect, while someone I can proudly call family has a need to talk and share life with me. Living and working together so closely created a natural flow where I find myself getting frustrated when someone is slow or lazy, felt intense borrowed happiness when others graduate, or just enjoyed the after-hours complaining/joking about anything in our little shared house with no walls. Paradoxically the joy of connection in community life also seems to isolate my senses of self-worth and lose focus of personal goals. Some days the personal goal is to survive today’s work and sleep a good 6 to 8 hours. That is not exactly the idea I had in mind to ‘get fit in in Finland’ or to ‘study an online degree’. I did not imagine insomnia under the Finnish midnight sun. Although, I do not look at myself in the mirror with unhappy thoughts, I also don’t look at myself in the mirror with the idea ‘yeah, good job, one-step closer to your goal today’. At least, not yet.
I needed to find a visible space to write down: ‘what others do is not important to my path and it does not reflect on me.’ While we can experience things as a family, true contentment shouldn’t require a baseline comparison or a group consensus. My version of content and pride in what I do or achieve in a day can be completely different from others’ ideas. The victory of being happy with my own progress and the work that I did in a day is my own. I find joy in reaching a pragmatic, efficient workflow. If someone else operates differently, it shouldn’t frustrate me. Perhaps, it can simply be a lesson in communication. My growth is enough and I should treat myself to the time this village has given me for that, independently of the surrounding noise. When or where else would I ever have all this time for personal growth anyways? This post is a promise that I will claim that time, possibly with a little cringe (at writing this down).