find some balance

This goal is going to be crucial for me in January. I don’t want to feel the level of stress and anxiety I felt for the past two months. I don’t want to feel that ever again. And with starting a new fulltime job and a new semester of classes I am thinking that I have very little chance of peacefully making it through the next couple months if I don’t make this a priority.

I will balance working hard and also finding time to enjoy myself completely. Stop having such a black or white, all or nothing perspective, find some grey areas. Go easy on myself, but not accept procrastination or laziness because for me that only results in more stress and pressure. Effort, effort, effort. And taking care of myself (physically, mentally, emotionally, and every other way), which is the most important thing of all.

Alas, I am fighting off a cold/flu (hoping its not swine derived) which has completely knocked me on my ass and I’ve spent the majority of the weekend in bed. Today I’m feeling a bit better, although still exhausted; I think I might be capable of getting some studying done. However, I’m having trouble finding any sort of motivation whatsoever and at the same time can feel stress building about the unfinished (not to mention, the unstarted) tasks ahead of me for this month.

I’m trying to focus on the small steps that I can do right now in this moment, instead of the whole outcome which is really overwhelming. Babysteps, as some people say. It seems to be working.

This week I came to some realizations. Long story short, I am stressed out. More so than I have ever been in my whole life. It’s a strange feeling, and even a little bit scary. I thought that the last month of finishing my degree was stressful, but the way I felt then is nothing compared to how I have felt recently. While surfing the internet I stumbled across a “Stress Test” quiz. Now, I don’t put faith into those types of things at all, I know better than that. But for some reason I took this quiz anyways (out of curiousity I suppose), and scored VERY HIGH. Lovely. Seeing those words at the end kind of made me freeze for a moment. After reflecting on this all for a few days I realized that I have been stressed for quite some time, and I have just been ignoring it. In all honesty, this whole year has actually been very rough for me so far. It is to the point now that this stress manifesting itself into physical symptoms, and I have been ignoring those too.

Fortunately, I know why I am feeling this way and exactly what pressures have been inflicting this stress on me. I need to find some balance between 1) the work that I need to do, the things I need to accomplish, and generally getting my ass into gear and 2) enjoying myself and having moments to relax without feeling guilt or pressure.