I am a self-confessed dilly dallier 🌻

And very okay with it, too 🙂

When

Katie Selina

posted this note, I felt a heady whoosh of ‘oh, this is me.’ It’s meeeeee. I am a dilly dallier, and that is why I could never have stayed in corporate London, doing corporate London things and slowly burning through every reserve of energy I had.

I have come to learn that some of us are just better equipped for a slower pace of life. We’re not cut out for the cut-throat. We can be decisive, but only if we’ve taken the time to ponder first; we can do hard things, but only after a period of unnecessary worrying and riding waves of anticipatory anxiety. We need to leave lots of space in-between to think, to feel, to…well, dilly dally, I suppose.

Perhaps it’s a symptom of being a HSP (highly sensitive person) and an introvert - I am someone who needs time on their own after a meeting, event or any kind of gathering to decompress and regain energy, both mental and physical. I often feel like I’ve been hit by a bus after social events, a ‘social hangover’ if you will; I purposefully plan my diary so that I always have a couple of days in-between the ‘Big Things’ to be at home in my cosiest pyjamas.

It’s clear to me now that I struggled in corporate environments because I found them so over-stimulating. The harsh air con in summer and intense heat in winter, the juggling of different personalities, the pressure to go out and be social after work when I knew that I had to face a two-hour journey home afterwards. There were so many obligations and internal politics to navigate, so many expectations that I didn’t know I had to conform to, and I found the whole thing mildly infuriating and extremely overwhelming.

I needed to be in my own space, where my own thoughts and feelings and routines were the priority, to really flourish - but of course, I didn’t figure that out until four years later, when the world was plunged into lockdown and I was working alone and setting my own schedule for the first time. It was freeing. I could have Gilmore Girls on in the background while I worked if I wanted to, I could dilly dally to my heart’s content and build comfort and stillness and contemplation into my day because my time was my own to manage. I felt my whole body soften and relax as my nervous system found a peaceful happy medium. I wasn’t on high alert anymore: the stakes had never been lower, and my expectations of myself had plateaued, too.

The dilly dalliers of our society aren’t lazy or incapable or lacking in get-up-and-go energy. We are simply slow movers in an often fast moving world. It takes us a little time to catch up, to find our way, and maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe, we could all benefit from standing still every once in a while.

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Thanks so much for reading! Are you a dilly dallier? Please leave me a comment, I’d love to hear from you. Thanks also to Katie for providing the inspiration for this post 🙂