I did not imagine that this is what I would begin the 200 series with. I knew that it was probably going to be something different, or something unexpected, but this was outside of my range of \u201cunlikely things that might happen\u201d.
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\nThe past few days have been strange. Scary. Weird. I don\u2019t know. I feel like I\u2019ve been on the brink of some sort of burnout. Or perhaps I DID burnout. It reminds me of 2007, when I felt upset and miserable all the time and wondered if maybe I was on the edge of depression. Or was I depressed altogether? It\u2019s difficult how subjective these things seem. I always imagine that it only counts if you\u2019re utterly incapacitated. But I\u2019m significantly inconvenienced, significantly hurting, significantly unable to live the life that I want.
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\n(Ah, but what if what you want is unreasonable? Maybe the solution is to want less. I like to think that I\u2019ve thought about that. I don\u2019t want material possessions. I don\u2019t want a watch, I don\u2019t want a car. I don\u2019t want everybody in the world to love me anymore. I don\u2019t want a huge fanbase or follower count like I used to. I don\u2019t want to run an incredibly popular blog anymore. All I want is to be able to sleep well at night. All I want to do is to smile and be confident and happy that I\u2019m on top of the things that matter to me. To be a good husband, to be a valuable member of the team at work. To laugh heartily. To not feel like I\u2019m breaking promises, missing deadlines.
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\nI\u2019ve definitely written this before. Several times. Over the years. Just as I had written several times about how I ought to quit smoking, and I had written several times about how social media addiction was a problem for me. I haven\u2019t smoked a cigarette since July, not one. Not a single puff. And I unfollowed 99% of people on Twitter and Facebook, rendering both my feeds really boring. So I spend very little time on that.
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\nBut when I remove those things from my life, it just reveals so much more ugly. It\u2019s like destroying the first Reaper that\u2019s right in front of your face, and then seeing that there are a hundred more in the distance advancing towards you. Cigarettes and Facebook were just the numbing agents I was using, self-medicating with, to keep me from having to pay attention to the desolate landscape of my life. Now- here the moment I say \u2018desolate landscape\u2019 I know that that sounds like overkill, hyperbole, that I have a lot of things to be happy and grateful for. I mean outside of that. So maybe my metaphor isn\u2019t good enough, apologies for that. I\u2019ll figure out something better along the way.
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\nMy back is killing me (I think stress\/posture\/anxiety related), and I\u2019ve been having shit quality sleep and have been waking up really tired and out of it. I feel like I\u2019ve put in a lot of work to become better and- yeah I\u2019m seeing some results but I feel like I\u2019m really losing steam. When I\u2019m on the train on the way home I feel tempted to scream or hit strangers. I mean- there are no voices in my head telling me to do it, and there are no hallucinations or anything- I\u2019m just a lot more irritable. A lot more frustrated. Everything seems to be in the way between me and the person I want to be, the life I want to lead.
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\nI realize I have to let everything go. I have to prioritise my own health before anything else, because it would not be cool if I end up with legitimate health problems induced by stress- stomach ulcers or high blood pressure or whatever. That is not a price I am willing to pay.
\n\u00a0
\nI find myself grasping for things that I imagine might help. I started reading Stephen Covey\u2019s 7 Habits. I looked up Guruka Singh on YouTube again. I think back to how I felt in a sensory deprivation tank, how the breath is like an ocean, and how I need to take deep, expansive breaths.
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\nI know that there exists within me a power that I do not comprehend. I don\u2019t mean that in a metaphysical spiritual touchy feely way. I mean literally, there is an intelligence, there is a strength, there is potential. Legitimate potential. It truly exists, I truly believe it. I have seen glimpses of it before. I can understand if it\u2019s not something you can turn on at the flick of a switch, but I know that it\u2019s something that can happen more.
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\nAm I making sense? Am I missing something? I\u2019m just in a lot of pain and I need release and relief. Writing helps me with that. I need to keep dropping things off my ship so that I can get back to really simple fundamentals and get myself to do the really most important things. I have been suffering tremendously from a problem of prioritisation. I grew up trying to persuade myself that I didn\u2019t need priorities, that I could just improvise and random-walk and flit around from thing to thing, and that would be fun, that would be okay. That I would be some sort of roguish\/vagabond\/happy-go-lucky type. And you know, I think that\u2019s still possible- just that there\u2019s actually discipline involved in that, too.
\n\u00a0
\nA strange thing that I\u2019ve got going for me- I\u2019ve been making my bed every morning for a few weeks. I\u2019m pretty sure I started doing this because of a speech by Admiral McRaven.\u00a0He said to make the bed. And he seemed like a man who was in control of his life, enough so that they tasked him with leading other men into situations of absolute chaos. He also suggested a whole bunch of other things, and maybe I\u2019ll revisit that.
\n\u00a0
\nBut first I\u2019ll make the bed. First I\u2019ll sit in silence and breathe, because my brain needs tuning. First I need to put everything out of my mind and put myself first- not my cravings or my urges or my desire for random distraction and random-walking and random-exploration, but my stated self, my \u201cthat\u2019s who I want to be\u201d self.
\n\u00a0
\nI can do this. I believe it. I just need to relax. And then I need to pick one really small thing out of the most important things that I need to do, and do that- working backwards from what I\u2019m supposed to deliver. It\u2019s the hardest thing in my life so far, to have to confront this reality so starkly without distractions and without escape clauses. But I either fix this, or I ruin my own life. I know that sounds needlessly dramatic, and that the lizard-brain is wired for this sort of drama\u2026 but I have too many data points already. If I fail here, yeah, I can build myself back up eventually- but it will take so much longer. If I miss this bus I will have to wait months, maybe years for the next one.
\n\u00a0
\nYou will not fucking defeat me, Resistance\/saboteur-bum. You will not take my life hostage. I will fight you. And I will fight you with commitment and conviction that you have not seen before.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I did not imagine that this is what I would begin the 200 series with. I knew that it was probably going to be something different, or something unexpected, but this was outside of my range of \u201cunlikely things that might happen\u201d. \u00a0 The past few days have been strange.… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[329,684,452,62],"class_list":["post-8928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-word-vomit","tag-bmod","tag-body","tag-meditation","tag-mindfulness"],"yoast_head":"\n