No straight lines. You are not a brick.

Have you ever noticed how other than the horizon, if you're looking out to sea or across a plain, nature doesn't really do straight lines?

If you lie in the grass under a tree and look up at the canopy it's a chaotic jumble of erratic angles and curves. Stones aren't made like bricks, they're tumbled and wind scoured and sun baked and no two are the same. Trees aren't made like walls, they are drawn out of the ground by the sun, bent by the wind, made green by the rain or water tapped by deep roots. They grow in response to their environment.

So do we - we grow in response to our environment.

Your mission for this week, should you choose to accept it, is to think about that a bit.

Notice how your environment and the way you live your life shapes you.

Here's an example - I'm less fit in summer.

Where I live, it's too humid to cycle anywhere in summer. Rather than melting into a puddle (no straight lines in puddles, either), I drive places in my air conditioned car. In winter, it feels lazy to drive round the corner when I could cycle there.

Some more examples:

I have a lot of freckles because that's how my skin responds to being outside in the sunshine with no hat and no sunscreen.

I write these posts for you to read because I said I would - and I know my mind is motivated by external accountability more than internal accountability. If I tell myself I'll do a thing, I may or may not get to it. If I tell you I'll do a thing, I will move heaven and earth. My response to the loose expectation I've set with you is to be motivated to meet it.

There are examples everywhere. The food you eat - how does your body respond to that? Your past experiences - how are your expectations of the future shaped as a response to your past?

The more I think about this, the more kindness I feel towards myself. If the way my body is and the thoughts my mind thinks and the habits that I've formed are in part a response to my environment and circumstances (the body I was born with, the way my brain is wired, the genetics I have, the culture I am part of etc. etc.) then it starts to feel a bit absurd to try to fit myself into societal expectations (often largely pedalled by marketing - buy this product and you will fit into this mould). Like nature - I am not meant for straight lines and precise right angles.

I am a response to my environment. And that, to me, invites curiosity and kindness over judgement and trying to squash myself to fit.

It also begs the question - if you're a response to your environment, how might you then shape your environment so that your response to it takes you in the direction you want to go? That's one sneaky way to make change easier - change what you're responding to, rather than trying to change your response.