YK’s 365 Release: Day 45

A few years ago, there was a saying coined by my friends, “Pulling a YK.”

This meant leaving an event or party without saying goodbye, and the moniker came from the obvious. I used to surreptitiously leave functions.

As I explained to my friends repeatedly, I did this because when I thought about saying bye to everyone, it seemed overwhelming. So I would just not say bye to anyone. Overwhelming not because I was parting friends, but overwhelming because there were too many pauses. In addition, I like the idea of standing amongst friends, sharing a beautiful moment, and then slipping away, leaving that moment suspended, untouched by finality. It’s a romantic notion.

Now that I think about it, I realized my friends trained me over time. At first, they insisted that I at least text someone I was leaving so that someone knew for safety reasons. So I would leave and then text one person and that person would alert the troops. Then my friends encouraged me to tell one person BEFORE leaving, just in case. So I then made myself let one person know, quietly, that I was leaving, and after I left, that person would relay the message to the group. Finally, I have reached a point in my grasshopper training where I make a conscious effort to bid my farewells to as many people as I can handle in that moment.

My friends taught me a new trick, so to speak.

I believe people can change. I know this because I have changed, many times over the years, in fundamental ways. I have a theory that I call the “pinball theory”. By default we are like pinballs, we are catapulted into life and just land wherever we fall. We react to whatever is happening around us and let our surroundings direct us. When we have self-awareness, however, is when we are able to escape the pinball existence. When we gain control over our own lives, direct our lives the way we want, make the decisions not based on reaction, but based on our own agency. That is when we are really living.

We are living our lives. No one else is. We do not have to merely exist. We can make our lives manifest our exact desires. It’s a matter of being fearless, of being open to change, to the unknown. We have to be willing to learn new tricks beyond the bag of tricks we are given. We have to learn to look further than our eyes can see, think broader than our mind’s capacity, reach further than our perceptions. This is the way we find fulfillment, by navigating through our own lives, and changing constantly.

Now when people say to me, “I’m pulling a YK” it does not mean they are leaving without saying goodbye. People have said this to me to express that they are trying to be happy and blissful, peaceful. How honored and humbled I am that this is what I can bring to the people around me. And how magnificent it is that I have the power to change.

On day 45 of my 365 Release I am giving away another vintage toy that I acquired in adulthood out of nostalgia (see Day 4). People in their early to mid 30s will probably remember them. They were games you fill with water and play tic-tac-toe, or fishing, or ring toss. They were akin to water pinball, activated by a button that pushed the particles around. The water part was the novelty in these toys because the water had a mind of its own and would guide your ring or ball wherever it pleased, much like my pinball theory.

I am giving this to my older sister because she had to pave the way for my younger sister and me, and live from an unwritten script. She was the anti-pinball. She made our lives easier because she lived her own. I am grateful for her being an extraordinary person, brilliant beyond imagination.

I meditate on whether or not I am attached to my blissful childhood and know it is not the case because I do not dwell in my past, but reflect on it as a wonderful time that has contributed to my current happiness. And these toys that I have acquired out of sentimentality are present because they still bring me joy. I want to use this relationship to my childhood as a framework for modeling my relationship with all things. Not attached, conscious of it as a factor in my growth, and always bringing exuberance.

Life is so short. Let us not live merely the existence of the arc of a projectile. Let us navigate our own paths, create our own dreams, and follow our passion and love. May we always grasp our own destinies, and may we never ever settle. May we never be pinballs and may we always learn new tricks.