Oh So Overwhelming…

At the beginning of 2017, I was ready to take on the world!

I had everything planned out. I knew what I wanted and I knew how it would all work out for me. January to June/July worked out fine. My research was going well, my personal life was doing okay, all was good with Miss Sharon.

But come August, everything seemed to go downhill. It was like everything was crumbling. But me being the person that I am, I told myself I had to figure stuff out myself. I had to be strong. I couldn’t appear weak. Everyone was looking up to me, you know, all that kind of stuff. (complete and rubbish if you ask me)

I had responsibilities and I couldn’t just pawn them off or pretend like they didn’t exist, but everything was overwhelming. So here’s what I did. I kept struggling in the water (the water being my overwhelming situation) and trying to swim, but since I don’t know how to swim all I was doing was keeping myself from drowning.

And in as much as I was keeping myself alive, it wasn’t how I wanted to live my life and it was a lot of hard work. I finally came to my senses the day before my birthday, when the mere thought of another year was causing me to panic. Lol

It was actually not funny, but I can laugh at it now because lol, it\’s either that or cry.

At that point, I realized that there are times and seasons for everything that concerns you. This includes all your dreams and desires and ambitions. Sometimes we get impatient and we want to do everything NOW. Because we feel like we don’t have enough time, or because we see our mates achieving great things. So we pressure ourselves to act even when we are not ready. It\’s like taking someone who is in primary 6 and telling the person to write senior secondary school exams. Lol, I mean, just because said child can write doesn’t mean the child is ready for those exams.

So here is what I am trying to say. One of the easiest ways to become overwhelmed is to take on more than you can handle. It’s to say I can do so and so even when you cant, because the truth is, the minute you start to overstress one part of your life, every part of your life will feel the stress too and eventually begin to suffer.

It\’s important to be able to balance everything, from work to family, to friends, to fun. No, you don’t need to party every night, but you do need to be able to do something fun even if it’s just reading a book or catching up with someone over coffee.

You deserve to not just live life, moving from one day to the next, but to enjoy it.

And, it’s also important to be aware that everyone has different stress threshold levels (for lack of better words). Some people can handle any amount of work without batting an eye or taking any breaks, while others need to take regular breaks or have regular intervals to handle that same workload. It doesn’t make anyone inferior to anyone, it just means that we are all different. And honestly, it’s important that YOU realize that YOU are different from other people, because the sooner you realize this, the sooner you’ll be able to balance your life and move in the right direction.

So as the year comes to an end, and you plan for 2018, make sure your plans are not just realistic, but they also include you. Make sure they aren\’t all about making money at the cost of your well being. You deserve to not just live life, moving from one day to the next, but to enjoy it.

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