Never Tell Yourself, “I Can Never Do…”

Never Tell Yourself, “I Can Never Do…”

There were so many things I told myself that I would never do when it came to life when I was in my early 20s. Boy was I wrong. Not only did a majority of the things I told myself I would never do, I found myself ending up completely in those situations only for me to actually go through with it even though I said I would never do it.

Funny how life works that way. The very thing you didn’t want shows up and creates this negative aura because it’s not what you want. But in actuality, it’s quite an amazing experience to go through. You end up proving yourself wrong about a lot of things and need to realize you need to open yourself up to the possibilities and allow the experiences that your energy needs to arrive.

In this blog post, I’m going to mention the first of a few things I told myself that I would never do, but in the end it was actually what I really needed. This will be the first entry of several to follow. Hope you enjoy!

I Will Never Get Into A Long-Distance Relationship

Yeah… I was one of those. Didn’t make any sense. Relationships are mostly about being near each other. Combine that with both partners fulfilling their physical needs, I couldn’t see a long-distance relationship working. And then… the call to adventure arrived at my doorstep. In the summer of 2011, I and fellow Duderino David Hayter went to Vietnam to enjoy our summer break after doing work in the classroom for the entire year. He’s never been to Vietnam or left the country so a Vietnam trip was a very intriguing idea. I’ve only been to Vietnam with my mom so going again didn’t sound interesting whatsoever for the 3rd time around. Hayter made the decision to go instantly when my mom invited him to go while he was chilling at my house. his decision made me reconsider going since this time I got my best dude going with me. It will definitely be a new and interesting experience.

During this summer trip was when I began to frequently meetup my female friend that I made in Can Tho from my previous trip there. We kinda stayed in touch after we first met. We would chat every now and then and email each other sparingly when I went back home from the second trip. It was mostly consisting of me sending messages and songs that barely got any responses from her. Still, when I came back to Vietnam with Hayter, I decided to give her a call and meetup. Every time the Dudes went to Can Tho, I would meet her. If I recall correctly, I think we met up at least 5-6 times. Over time, things picked up as soon as my trip was headings toward the end. So this time, we decided to really keep in touch as soon as I was back in the states.

That initial phase was amazing. We were calling each other every day, maybe twice a day and chat for a few hours and time would fly like no other. She became a part of my daily need and habit. If we didn’t talk to each other in a given day, something felt off. Once we called it each other, all was right again. Because it was all so lovely, we officially began our long-distance relationship. But over time, the challenges began to sink in. I thought that to really express your love to another person, it would require physical contact. It’s like the old saying, “action speaks louder than words”. I wanted to physically show her how much she meant to me. But in our situation, we had had to find ways around that missing element. In the early going it wasn’t too difficult since we were still trying to understand and know each other. The questions and stories never stopped but it never felt boring or uninteresting despite the frequency and length of our conversations. So I had to rely only on the mental stimulation without the physical one to satisfy me or fulfill that certain need. And surprisingly, it was actually enough. Of course, this was something that completely caught me off guard because I told myself I never wanted to get into this type of situations. Especially since I was still a young and horny dude and here I was, having a relationship over the phone and luckily on Skype with our laptops. Even though there was a shortage of physical contact, what we had was surprisingly good enough until we could actually meet again.

Fortunately, I was still in school at the time, so when the semester was over and I had a few weeks off for winter break, I rushed to Vietnam to be with her and see if our spark was more than just a connection through the phone and Skype. When I arrived in Vietnam and held her for the first time as an official couple, it all just felt right. At that moment, I knew my path was going to change. I was going to need to find ways to come back to Vietnam to be with her. Whenever there was an extended break, I was back in Vietnam besides her. Eventually, after I got my degree, I took a leap of faith and moved to Vietnam without any plans or jobs lined up. I just went to see what could happen if I give myself 3 months. If things don’t work out on all fronts, I’ll just head back to the states and reassess the situation. If things work out… great!

6 years later, she became my wife. 7 years later, she became the mother to our baby Grace. It’s been all so surprisingly good. Could have never imagined it going this way, but it did and I absolutely love it, despite it being something that “I Can Never Do”.

You think you know yourself through and through but in actuality, you only know the past version of yourself. Not the person you should become or the potential you have within you to become something more.

Telling yourself that you won’t do this or that, or that you could never do this or that is completely putting limitations on yourself and experiences that you’ll encounter and is also stunting your own personal growth and love opportunities.

Love is a tricky thing and to find true love, I believe it requires you to go through all the challenges that come with it in order to truly understand how much the other person means to you. To truly feel like you love someone, I believe you need to really attempt the things you said you would never do in order to encounter opportunities to show exactly what you’re about. In order to truly understand who you are and what you’re about, you got to challenge yourself to do things you told yourself you “could never do”.

Stay tuned for the next entry riding the “I Can Never Do…” that wave. But in the next entry, I’ll be covering fitness.

This is David signing out and hope you enjoyed the post!

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