“Writing more” is proving to be harder than I thought - not because I don’t want to, but because I didn’t anticipate having zero time to sit at my laptop. Turns out, living a full life makes it difficult to document one.
So, January is over. And honestly, I don’t have any groundbreaking revelations about kindness - just that it feels good to extend it, which seems painfully obvious. But maybe it’s not so obvious to everyone. Maybe some people do need the reminder. So if that’s you, I do hope you’re okay.
Now, we’re nearly halfway through February. I’m back in NYC, rehearsing a show that terrifies me, and still trying to figure out exactly where I’m flying next.
Meanwhile, I’m still committed to this love quest. I originally planned to use this month to explore affection. But then, at the end of January, I had an enlightening conversation with my grandparents that rerouted my thinking.
Two Theories on Love
I asked my grandmother what love is before I left Lesvos. She gave me a lot of answers, but what stood out most was this: she doesn’t believe there are different types of love. To her, love isn’t categorized into friendship, romance, or family – it’s all the same feeling and intention, just directed at different people.
This has sort of been my thinking since I began this exploration on love. And this radical thought makes total sense - especially coming from her. My grandmother treats everyone with the same unwavering respect and kindness. Even when people don’t reciprocate, she gives without hesitation. When I asked her how she feels about that, she simply said:
“I don’t mind. Because when you love, you feel good with yourself.”
To me, this was a beautiful example of acceptance - my new focus for February.
Then I asked my grandfather the same question: “What is love?” His response:
“Bullshit.”
So, we have two very different working theories on love!
Testing My Ability to Accept
The moment I declared acceptance as my focus, the universe obviously cackled and decided to have a field day testing me.
For context, I’m a huge perfectionist. When it comes to travel, I micromanage every detail very quickly to anticipate potential disasters and prevent them from happening. But this month, everything went wrong anyway.
First, I fainted at the start of a major travel day. No warning, no explanation – just BAM, my body deciding, “Not today, bitch.” A few days later, four different airlines tag-teamed to ensure I missed my flight back to NYC, costing me a lot of precious sleep (when I was already unwell) and making me miss a doctor’s appointment that couldn’t be rescheduled. Then I landed in NYC, where chaos is the default, and immediately got hit with unreliable people, a housing situation falling through, health issues, and time functioning as its own lawless entity.
And I did a truly horrible job at accepting any of it.
I fully lost my mind at the airport when they botched my final flight home. I’ve spent weeks trying to fix everything that’s gone wrong, working overtime to outmaneuver disaster, only to find myself completely defeated when something derails beyond my control.
So, while I chose acceptance, the universe was busy seeing just how much I could actually accept. And honestly, I’m failing. Part of that failure is because I cling to control. But the other part is something deeper.
The Tricky Balance Between Acceptance and Complacency
Acceptance is complicated. On one hand, surrender is necessary. We can’t control everything. We can’t change people. And I believe real love (if it even exists) demands total acceptance - because if you’re trying to mold someone into something else, or even wishing they acted differently, you don’t love them. You love the idea of them.
And if someone is trying to fundamentally change you, that’s not love. That’s control. That’s why I’ve historically cut certain people out of my life - because their version of "love" came with conditions and expectations. If someone only values you when you fit their script, they don’t love you. They love compliance.
But here’s where it gets murky: while acceptance requires surrender, I’ve spent the past year raging against the rampant complacency in the world.
I think people “accept” too easily. They sit back when action is needed. They convince themselves that nothing can change, so they never even try. The world doesn’t get better because too many people have resigned themselves to the idea that they can’t change it.
And I see it constantly - especially in the way my friends let their jobs and "the system" run them into the ground. How they work unpaid overtime, accept unreasonable workloads, or let toxic bosses belittle them because that’s just the way things are. I’ve watched brilliant, talented people be steamrolled by corporations that treat them as disposable, and instead of fighting back, they adapt to the abuse. They make excuses for it. They tell themselves they’re “lucky to have a job,” when in reality, the system has beaten them down so badly they’ve forgotten their worth.
And it’s not just the jobs themselves; it’s the way we let corporations dictate the quality of our lives. The way we sigh and accept skyrocketing rent, impossible healthcare costs, and jobs that demand every ounce of our energy while paying just enough to keep us alive but never enough to actually live.
I f*cking hate it.
I hate how easy it is for people - good, smart people - to fall into the trap of accepting things that should be challenged. I hate that companies bank on our exhaustion, knowing we’re too burned out to fight back. I hate that we tell ourselves we’re powerless when we’re not.
But I also get it. People are running on fumes. They’re just trying to make it through the day. And when you’re barely holding it together, fighting back isn’t exactly high on your agenda.
But is this kind of passive surrender really wisdom, or is it just laziness disguised as survival?
And that’s what I can’t figure out.
So...where’s the balance? How do we accept the things we can’t change without becoming passive to the things we can? When do we surrender, and when do we fight? And how do we tell the difference?
I don’t have the answers yet. But maybe this month will teach me.
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