This is a good example of me not doing in accordance with my honest wantings given what Is, per my previous post.

I live in a ground floor apartment of an older two storey building. Given it is older, unfortunately, there is quite a lot of pass-through noise between the floors. Often, we can hear the guy who lives in the apartment upstairs walking around, listening to his TV etc. It’s not every day or night, but it does happen. I go to bed relatively early, but I can usually live with it when it does happen. I put earbuds in which does the job.

Last night though, he was doing something that sounded like bouncing a tennis ball against the floor, repeatedly. Maybe he was hitting the heel of his foot on the floor when sitting or laying down on a couch. It wasn’t heavy enough to be him full on jumping. Anyway. There was this noise, but then it would stop……..and then it would start again. It woke me up. It was 1.30am. It stopped and started again. Stopped and then started again. It kept going. Urgh.

I lay in bed, not doing anything, i.e. doing lying and seething and hoping it would end. After a while I put my earbuds in as they were by my bed, but that didn’t solve it tonight. The noise was too sharp and distinct against the backdrop of silence. 

Bump-bump, bump. BUMP. Bump…………Bump-Bump……………………..Bump. Bump. Bump. etc.

I didn’t want to get out my warm, cozy bed to get my headphones in the other room i.e. I wanted to stay in bed. I didn’t want to tell the guy to stop whatever he was doing i.e. I wanted to stay in bed and avoid getting into a potential argument at 2am (don’t tell me how to live my own life in my own apartment!). When I’m super-tired I’m liable to go into it with a ‘what the fuck are you doing, moron’ kind of mindset. That might not be bad, but the last thing I want to do is create some kind of reactance where he starts doing things like that on purpose once he knows how easy it is to create disturbance. He is in the upstairs flat and therefore has the power to make noise on a whim. Some people are just like that, and he is like that. In fact, I really would just rather not interact with him at all. Let’s just say from previous interactions he strikes me as an irrational and hot-headed type of guy. 

On the other hand, I wanted to sleep, understandably. I wanted to get up at 6am so I could write. From experience, I know that my grogginess for the day was becoming more likely, which I didn’t want. This was upsetting me. I also interpreted that it was an avoidable disruption, the guy could simply not be doing that in the first place. It was unfair. I was seething. 

Now I hadn’t communicated that I wanted him to stop, so I was hoping he would stop…just because? Because he should go to bed! It’s 2.30am man, why are you just up chilling by yourself, bouncing something, on a weekday? Because he should know that making noise on the floor impacts people downstairs! I was also upset with myself for not actioning that.

I was semi-conscious of all these thoughts, all these thoughts cycling through my mind for an hour and a half while I lay in bed, warm and cozy.

However, despite recognising all that, I didn’t consciously ask myself the most important question: is this what I honestly wanted? To lie in bed, seething, mind racing with negative, circular thoughts? No, I honestly wanted to sleep. I’m predisposed to do that shit. I feel better on 7.5-8 hours, worse on 3-4 hours. This is what I needed to prioritise. I already knew the two solutions after five minutes – either go get my headphones from the other room or communicate with the guy to make him aware that he needs to stop whatever the fuck he is doing.

It was 2.50am when I finally decided to get my headphones and put some background noise on. Finally. It worked, as I knew it would. I changed my doing from listening to the upstairs noise and seething, to listening to background noise and not seething, which allowed me to go back to sleep. Unfortunately, it also then meant that I woke up a lot, because the earphones pressed into my ear uncomfortably, so everytime I rolled over I stirred. Better than nothing. Also not ideal. I picked a sort of in-between solution. I solved my immediate problem, but created more problems for myself.

I was not living in accordance with my honest wantings given what Is.

If I’m really honest with myself, l want to address the root of the problem, which means communicating with the guy upstairs. Without communicating with him about it, how is he going to know that it needs to be solved? I really want to do that skillfully so he doesn’t have reactance. I can address it with him in day time, so I’m not tired. This is what I need to prioritise. It’s one thing knowing this though. I know that this is what I honestly want, but I need to actually do in accordance with that for it to become reality. 

Alas, doing in accordance with my honest wantings is not the easy life.