Give only to those who will receive

Happy Sunday & thank you for opening this week’s #TheLifeofJLOWE newsletter!

I’ve said this before, multiple times, but writing a newsletter every week is hard. Why? Because it’s not like you guys interact with me much - I don’t get comments, likes, shares or anything recurring and visible to motivate me to keep writing more, although I know that there’s quite a few people out there who look forward to my newsletter every week. (Send me a text or dm if that’s you haha 😋 @thelifeofjlowe)

This week, I was really considering whether or not I should write my newsletter, and whether or not it’s really worth the time and effort I put into it week after week.

That’s when I realized that I think my purpose for writing this newsletter — at some point, I don’t know when — transitioned from being for myself to being for you, the audience.

When I look back at my newsletter from 2 years ago, I was sharing personal stories and recounting experiences that taught me important life lessons in pretty great detail, but now as it’s grown to more than just a few family members and close friends reading, it’s become more impersonal and very centered on how I can help you week over week.

What is this newsletter anwyays?

That’s not a problem, because I enjoy writing stories to inspire and motivate, but at the same time, #TheLifeofJLOWE is meant to be my newsletter, not a generic come-take-a-word-of-inspiration-and-leave weekly e-mail.

That being said, I also think I’m at a point where a lot of the lessons that I’ve shared in the past are re-surfacing, because life really just is a series of events with recurring themes, and I'm by no means re-inventing the wheel on how to handle these events, but rather just sharing a perspective that may or may not be useful to you, the reader.

At the end of the day, though, the coolest thing about sharing with you week over week is that a lot of the times when I get feedback, it’s like playing cinderella with you. Some of you explain to me how the perspectives that I share fit the various situations in your lives, and it really is eye-opening as to how my own experiences can inform your similar-but-not-exactly-the-same experiences too.

That for me is fulfilling.

Share, care but only so much and so far

What I’ve realized as a part of my own emotional growth journey, however, is that you can share as much as you want with people, but they’re still going to do what they want to do no matter what you tell them. It might be what you tell them, but it’s going to be because they decided they want to do it, not because you told them.

You can give so much of yourself to others, but it’s really only effective insofar as they want to receive.

The growth that you might have personally isn’t the same growth that others will have in the same time period — and that could even mean yours is more or less — but what’s important is that none of us are really in the same place in our life timelines at any given point in time.

So I’m learning to find peace in offering of myself, and not expecting anything.

I’m learning to find peace in accepting that other people won’t understand me, and sometimes even themselves, despite how you might help or want them to.

You can’t force someone else to grow. It has to come from them. Your own growth doesn’t affect other people, and it can get frustrating to try to extend it to others.

So find peace in not expecting anything from others. Zero expectations? Zero disappointment.

Conclusion

I keep talking about protecting your peace. How do you do that?

Recognize that you don’t owe anything to anybody.

Recognize that you don’t have to change anybody or save anybody but yourself.

Give of yourself yes, but only insofar as people will receive.

Don’t make your journey any harder than it needs to be. Help others, love on others, but never ever forget that love starts with yourself, so learn to love yourself first.

Until next Sunday,

Justin