071. Life Is Hard

I’m so tired I fear if I blink too long, I’ll dream up having had written this.

More than halfway through my workday today, I leant that tomorrow public holiday. Meaning, no traffic and going to office, however, that does not mean no work.

Tomorrow like any other day is a workday. I am not sure if the past self who created this platform would have thought such a thing. For me to be able to exist in this moment where I make it my goal to write something, she would have need to believe that the would be a use for this platform found along the way.

I think if we are to consider work-life balance as a concept, I think it would need to be broken down into seasons.

When you challenge the notion ‘what can be achieved in day’, you learn that there are only so many hours between the time the sun peeps from one end, and sets on the other. Using that one timeframe as your only frame of reference for what can be achieved can be quite limiting.

I’ve noticed a shift in my personality. Moreso, I am beginning to accept this shift.

At first, it was kind of startling, yet somehow subtle. Of course when you have been reading something or working on something, your mind is bound to gravitate toward some of those topics. Perhaps, you may even bring up some of those topics in conversation. So, of course, is was normal when I wanted to talk about whatever I had been reading or working on. Then, it bled into my leisure, almost seamlessly. The time that was reserved for people maintained it’s space, but time spent watching a video or reading a book also fill with work.

Starting a new job was scary. The things I had heard about the environment inspired nerves. I wondered what this new world would present. How I would be able to maintain my life, preserve my world. So many people I knew had anxiety about having to be on high alert in case some out of hours work appeared. I feared being at the beacon call of some cruel superior, but, it wasn’t like that. The environment had its issues but they were not something that could not be survived.

I have had quite a few jobs in my life now. Jobs I am grateful to have had but, none that I would really say I wanted, at least not beyond a means of survival.

Adulting is hard. Sometimes you wake up and you realise that no matter how you feel, no matter how tired you are, or how you just want to take a break, you can’t, because if you do, an avalanche of disaster awaits you. You cannot switch on your heating because you cannot afford the rise in your bill, your fridge is almost empty but you paid your water bill because they had threatened to switch of, all while you are praying you will have enough money to make it work because if you don’t, you will not have a place to live next month.

Life is hard. Sometimes you wake up and you realise life is hard. Instead of dismissing how you feel, you accept that life is hard. You accept that whether you get up or you don’t, the world will not fall off it’s axis. As life did long before you, and will do after you, life will go on, and the world will keep spinning.

There was a time when I wanted to take a break. A time when life just felt like a thing I wanted escape from. Then it all fell apart and I had to take time to heal. What I learnt from that was not that life was hard, but, that life I was living was hard. It was the kind of hard that was incompatible with who I was at that time. In truth, it remains incompatible with me today but at least now, I know I have the choice not to choose that life.

Life is hard, and that is the way of life. It’s hard to say ‘I need to leave because I need to get up early and start my day’. It’s hard to say, ‘I’m sorry I can’t, I have some work I need to get through’. It’s hard to wake up at 0530 in the morning, and it’s hard to leave the gathering just as everyone is settling in and the vibes are picking up. It’s hard to try and be someone you aspire to be, but to do so, you have to learn to do hard things. You have to learn to be a person who meets life in the morning, ready to do hard things.

So, I am not sure if I have done this to prove a point but, it is way past my bedtime now. Fortunately, I would much rather hear the kind things I will say to myself when I wake up with my alarm and go for my walk, than I would rather here all the terrible things I would call myself if I were to break my chain because of a holiday I know nothing about.

For months, I longed for this feeling. This drive, this pull. However, the only reason it is there now is because I pushed every day. On days when I wanted only to release myself from my promise, I fought through that inner resistance. I showed myself that I can do hard things. No matter how I feel, no matter if I am tired, I will not break. The more I try, the better I get at trying.

So, maybe, from the outside it may not look like I have work-life balance, but, for the first time through the entirety of my professional career, I am where I want to be, doing what I want to be doing, then perhaps I have become a little obsessed with doing thing. Though, it is simply the season. Eventually, the tide will shift, and a new season will take form, however right now, I cannot wait to get to it tomorrow.

Dear reader, thank you for being there for me to write to.