... "Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'"

[Jean]

Arr'ght, this has been quite a week. I've had friends coming over this weekend, so cleaning and decluttering to do. We went fishing today and it was nice and way less complicated than I'd have thought. Fishing may enter my life in the future. Work has ben its usual hell though I'm starting to feel comfortable in it. I think I'm developing confidence and will soon be ready for a dramatic turn (meaning being less defensive and more unapologetic), good things are to come.

 

Vineyard:

 

Purely administrative progress: I haven't worked a minute on it these weeks but my sister has become interested in it and will take care of a part of it. The lesser total surface means that more of it has been done when expressed as a percentage.

 

 

Surviving at work:

 

It's been crazy. I hope this week will be lighter but have very little hope of it.

 

 

Decluttering:

 

Had no choice but to work on it before my friends arrival. I still have a locked room full of stuff, I choose to define that as a good 40% left to do.

 

 

Survival rations:

 

Hopefully no volcano will erupt this year.

[Jean]

Well, I need to write this up in order to get it out of my mind: how come there are "one of these days?"

 

You know, the day when everyone seems to have decided to call you and the important stuff gets drowned into petty demands and you have no way to sort them before calling people back and end up spending hours listening to petty problems while there are important stuff you have to take care of and it's hidden in one of those unknown numbers?

 

So, yeah, today was one of those days. I don't want to live another one of them. Ever.

 

[Jupiter]

I'm sorry today wasn't a very good day. Hopefully tomorrow will be better. 

[Jean]

Thanks. I like to complain but I've eaten enough, there was a roof over my head when I went to bed and war wasn't raging on the streets so it was still a pretty OK day.

 

Today has the means to be more productive, we'll see how it goes.

[Jean]

I'll make some kind of real update during the weekend but, for now, some inspirational music to have me soar through the day : Two Steps from Hell - Wild Heart

 

[Jean]

Several observations I've made lately. I'm storing them here for later use:

 

I don't spend time for myself. My free time is used for others (volunteering), doing things that don't appeal to me (socializing) or being sick and trying to build myself up again. This needs to change.

There is no such thing as a "fair amount" of things to do to deserve some rest. The circumstances don't adapt to "fair". Things change when they are done. I need to find my focus and prioritize the things that need to be done for me over the things that need to be done for my job, which are an endless energy draining pit.

It's time to dig out my military training, in particular:

• specific times to wake up and go to bed.
• a looooot of time to prep up in the morning. This includes breakfast.
• starting the day with some physical workout. The day doesn't start too early and that's no reason to rush to work.
• eating and drinking enough.
• things are done when everything is cleaned, stowed and ready for the next use.

We were always tired but there was always a lot of time in the day when I was doing it so I'll take it as a starting point and build things back up from there.

 

I've discovered that I'm absolutely not doing things with purpose. I want to explore another way of life where you decide what outcome you want to achieve before doing anything and once it is settled, you do the things in the way required to reach that outcome. Do less but with more focus. It may be worth reading some stuff about the way of the Samouraï. I'll see if I can dig out my copy of Myamoto Musashi's Gorin-no-shô.

[Jean]

I'm getting lost in my thoughts so I need to put down what constitutes a win for today in order to get a few things done.

 

A win for today is:

Working 2+ hours on the vineyard.

Practice the scout's mini yoga routine.

Do 3*6 inverted bodyweiht rows.

Being ready with my plan for the road project I'm working on to show to my boss tomorrow.

Having written the letters needed for said project so that they can be sent early tomorrow.

Having studied what is asked of me for an article in the local newspaper and having written part of it (ETA: I'm dropping it, it can wait 'till tomorrow.)

 

Everything else is secondary. When I've reached this, I can go to sleep.

[Jean]

I've had a creative thought today. It feels like I hadn't had one in more than a year... seems important enough to record here. I guess what my body is telling me is that I am in some kind of a perma-stress state and running straight for a wall on which to break my head. My brain is reminding me that it's still sharp and that there's a future for me out of this job.

 

I've changed my music regimen, switching to calm, meditative musics/songs and will see how it goes.

 

By the way:

Surviving at work

Getting even with "due overtime"

 

That one's been cracked! The reward was a week of coughing and low energy due to my body letting go and catching a cold. I don't care, I'll still celebrate when I'll be in a better shape.

 

 

The bottom line of this all is that I think I'm living my life on the asumption that time is working for me and that there is a time when things will sort themselves out. I now feel like there isn't: the basic problem is that there are more things to do in a day than time in it, almost every day. The days that aren't that way end up being used for letting go and end up not being productive. Things will only change when I'll make them so and that means tackling a few things at a time, carrying them through and dropping absolutely everything else. 'Twould be great if I could put filters on my phone but, unfortunately, I can't and I'll have to tell people directly.

[Jean]

Hey, thanks for being there!

 

I'm alive and going through what looks like the last pockets of resistance with my cold. It's its dying breath but it gives it its all. ^^

 

Also, I wish for that beautiful phone filter for christmas. You know, something that knows ahead of time if a call is important or not and that redirects all those that aren't. If someone is willing to invent it, I'll pledge my money to him/her and grant him/her my undying thanks.

[Jean]

I had kind of an epiphany, yesterday, after volunteering for 18 hours straight while already being physically and mentally tired: I can't process life as anything but survivial mode and putting trial after trial. If I'm not trying to put something more after an achievement, or take on more of them at once, I feel like I should be doing more. Plus, my sense of self-worth is oriented toward giving more than recieving, as in: getting something done for me doesnt give me any feeling of satisfaction and doing things for others seems like the only way by which I'm justifying my existence.

 

All in all, life ends up feeling like an exhausting experience. I've then turned death as the only mean of real rest (since having built back even a tiny bit of energy by taking care of myself means I should be using it) and, as such, dying is part of the victory conditions for me.

 

BUT

 

The way I've lived also figures prominently in said victory conditions. If spending time for myself isn't an acceptable situation, then dying for my own sake isn't either. There's no worth in death if I haven't lived first, a book is no book if there's only the cover, I have to write a story in it and I seem to want it to be heroic.

 

That means that I have no fear of death and can find joy even in the darkest times. It also means that I am draining myself and not living as a true being.

 

I don't know what to make of this.

 

ETA: Thinking more about it, it feels like I'm thinking that a future breakthrough will make it all worth it in the end. I'd then have lived my life retroactively. This may both be a good and a bad thing.

[Tobbe]

Those are some deep thoughts! 

 

Try working on accepting spending time on yourself. Spending time on yourself, and treating yourself the best you possible can is important. Have you tried meditating or doing yoga? Wait, didn't you talk about doing tai chi? What came out of that?

[Jupiter]

7 hours ago, Tobbe said:

Those are some deep thoughts! 

 

Try working on accepting spending time on yourself. Spending time on yourself, and treating yourself the best you possible can is important. Have you tried meditating or doing yoga? Wait, didn't you talk about doing tai chi? What came out of that?

 

Agree with Tobbe here. And also, if you think about it, spending time on yourself is helping others, in a way. Because you can't help others if you're not taking proper care of yourself first.

 

11 hours ago, Jean said:

If I'm not trying to put something more after an achievement, or take on more of them at once, I feel like I should be doing more.

 

I totally get it, I feel like this too. But you can only do what you can do and sometimes you just have to let the rest sort itself out. 

[Jean]

Thanks both!

 

8 hours ago, Tobbe said:

Have you tried meditating or doing yoga? Wait, didn't you talk about doing tai chi? What came out of that?

 

The job got hectic and the tai chi has been dropped. My excuse for that is that I felt really uncomfortable during the paired sessions (pairing ourselves with another participant to do some exercises) and that I would keep doing it on my own (I didn't).

 

There was some yoga in the last Scout's mini challenge, which I liked. I'll make a goal of either yoga or tai chi or both this challenge. It does help, as does running and basically any physical activity that I do for myself and prioritize over everything else going on at some point in the day. Reading could help too. I may make a goal of it this challenge too (depending on whether or not I can get a hold of my book before Sunday).

 

 

51 minutes ago, Jupiter said:

 

Agree with Tobbe here. And also, if you think about it, spending time on yourself is helping others, in a way. Because you can't help others if you're not taking proper care of yourself first.

 

 

I totally get it, I feel like this too. But you can only do what you can do and sometimes you just have to let the rest sort itself out. 

 

While I'm a big proponent of this, I've always been very poor at applying it to myself. I'm getting slightly better recently (which really means I've jumped from 0 to 0.1 xD) but letting things pass by brings the question of what I do want to do with my time and that usually ends up with me drowning my time on the internets because I really have no idea. Thinking of it too much also brings up the question of the purpose of life. Doing things for others gives me purpose, it makes things easy. Deciding for myself where the heck I want to go and why is a whole different kind of ragged boat in rapids.

[Jean]

[SNIP] Autocensured by myself because this kind of shit really don't belong here. Sorry for that.

 

Now, excuse me while I go punch a closet in the face.

[Tobbe]

[Jupiter]

On 9/8/2019 at 1:42 PM, Jean said:

While I'm a big proponent of this, I've always been very poor at applying it to myself. I'm getting slightly better recently (which really means I've jumped from 0 to 0.1 xD) but letting things pass by brings the question of what I do want to do with my time and that usually ends up with me drowning my time on the internets because I really have no idea. Thinking of it too much also brings up the question of the purpose of life. Doing things for others gives me purpose, it makes things easy. Deciding for myself where the heck I want to go and why is a whole different kind of ragged boat in rapids.

 

Maybe if you break it down into smaller chunks? Choose one thing you want to do and try it for a while? If you don't like it, move on to the next thing, and so on. Try not to think about where you want to go and why but just pick an activity/new skill to learn because you like it? And just go from there. 

 

On 9/10/2019 at 12:43 PM, Jean said:

 

Now, excuse me while I go punch a closet in the face.

 

[Jean]

On 9/13/2019 at 9:14 PM, Jupiter said:

Maybe if you break it down into smaller chunks? Choose one thing you want to do and try it for a while? If you don't like it, move on to the next thing, and so on. Try not to think about where you want to go and why but just pick an activity/new skill to learn because you like it? And just go from there. 

 

'Tis a pretty hard thing to do but then again, I've become a master at finding excuses for myself. I don't know that I am ready for it, so I wouldn't know how to protect the time that would go into these activities (one at a time). For now, I think I'll focus on my challenge which contains plenty of things I think I'm doing for myself, we'll see how it goes. Thanks for the idea.

 

 

 

[Jupiter]

Yeah, for sure.  That looks like a fantastic challenge. Have fun!  

[Jean]

I'm putting it here not to forget:

 

I tend to start big, putting too many things into my days because they must be reached. The quiet time in the night/morning changes my priorities: I enjoy it a lot, so I want to make it last longer and I delay starting the day. As I do so, I'm putting ways together to achieve good enough results in the available time and what I set to do in the day becomes achievable.

 

All of this is necessary for now: the being taken over by the magnitude of the tasks to do, which leads to an early wake up, which leads to me thinking, which leads to achievability.

 

The first part isn't a desirable one, though. The perfect situation would have me not panick in the first place and accept more "losses" as acceptable. Right now, I let other's priorities set my owns: while I don't put too much value in many of the things that can't be attained and are, in my opinion, not seriously worth pursuing in the timeframe we have (a lifetime, which is both plenty and rather short), I let other people's short sightedness put my focus on them: as ever, I am fighting for other people's dreams.

 

I still can't figure out why people put so much value on the things that can't be achieved and how we all think we can defy time. It feels like we don't take the full perspective into account and think locally, leading to us being able to get more time for specific tasks, without thinking broadly and noticing that said time is borrowed form the whole pool of our life and that it is costing us other things that we won't be able to do. Then we rush to our death and, at the end, awaken realising that "there isn't enough time".

 

It'd be easier to think of it every day and only do the things for which there is time enough. It would bring ourselves more calmness and death wouldn't come as a foe taking us away from the things we still want to do but as the natural closure to a life well lived. If we focus on doing every day whatever truly fits in that day, there can be no regrets and every day is a day well lived.

[Jean]

Allright, test #1: can I take an afternoon off and live my life doing all the things I want to do without having job things weighing on it like a heavy shadow?

 

Let's find out together!

 

Edit: semi-success

I got out, replenished my coffee supply, made and drank a coffee.

I went out to run and do my inverted rows and hollow holds.

I've taken a nap.

 

I still got a bit stressed out over the phone (that thankfully didn't ring). I should have cut it off but I'm supervising some roadworks and wanted to be available in case an emergency required solving. Gotta work better on that to allow myself to replenish more fully.

[Renate]

Hey ! Had not followed this yet. 

 

I say this a lot to people that can grind on reserve and I will say it again. You are probably bad at applying the principle of "taking care of myself = taking care of others" because you are way too capable of helping others while you are feeling like crap.

 

Granted, I am jealous in the best way, and Idk how to help you, except to think forward, now. Your body can only handle so much, even if your mind can plow on and make it get its sh* together.

 

The last few years my mom was completely tired out due to circumstances finally becoming too much, and I say finally because it made her stop and take care of herself. 

 

Glad to see you are taking steps before that happens! 

 

Excuse me if I am making an erronous analysis and/or comparison. I am just your friendly incredibly mortal human that dehydrates & gets sleep deficiencies madly easily that takes it upon herself to remind the superpowered-people/givers what is human to do :p

[Jean]

3 hours ago, analoggirl said:

You are probably bad at applying the principle of "taking care of myself = taking care of others" because you are way too capable of helping others while you are feeling like crap.

Oh my, am I! Thanks for the insight. You can add to it that my low self in-the-now worth makes me take risks on the basis of "if I succeed, I'll be worth it, if I fail, at least I've tried and the world's not loosing much" (yup, the world, not me, once again...)

 

Speaking of insight, you are probably on to something here:

3 hours ago, analoggirl said:

Your body can only handle so much, even if your mind can plow on and make it get its sh* together.

 

Part of me acting this way is by fear of loosing the ability to keep working through shitty times. It's sort of a training: "are you aware the apocalypse could be on its way? You better train to be ready for the apocalypse, you know, adapting to your real actual life that has a 100% chance of happening is really not worth it. I told you: the apocalypse!" In a way, I like my life as it is. In several ways, I don't. Glad your mother got it sorted out. My sense of self worth is catching up with me too, making me do crazy things like go see a doctor when I'm sick (or maybe it's age).

 

Very good food for thoughts, glad you're passing by.

 

 

[Jean]

Just another thought to throw here:

 

It sometimes feels like it would be easier if things broke down on their own. If, sometimes, the world smote me with all its might, screaming: "You got too far this time, kid! Get back in your league!". I realise that it is pretty selfish to look at it this way when so many people actually get smitten and go through deep pain because of it but if I'm taking some distance, maybe that means that I'm performing adequately and could potentially aim for more. More, here, being sustainability and more room for balance.

 

I may be viewing my situation from the bottom of a hole while perspective might show that I have more options than I'm willing to see. Taking perspective would mean taking a holiday (thanks @Murphy's Roommate for his own perspective on the matter). I'll take advantage of the extended weekend I'm having this week and try to figure things out from there (seing if I need more time or what to aim for).

 

Then again, I may already have all that I need and just be on the way to reach sustainability.

 

As ever: food for thoughts.

[Jean]

Another thought:

 

On 9/22/2019 at 8:30 AM, analoggirl said:

I say this a lot to people that can grind on reserve and I will say it again. You are probably bad at applying the principle of "taking care of myself = taking care of others" because you are way too capable of helping others while you are feeling like crap.

Emphasis mine.

 

While I need to keep functionality in mind and take care of myself, this is actually my biggest strength. It's why I can rise up from feeling like crap and why hardships carry me up instead of taking me down: I'm not fighting for myself. I know there are a lot of people like me out there, struggling just like I do. Feeling left out just like I have. Not understanding how we got into the paradoxes we're in just as I have. I know we're here. And I know we have more to offer. We can feel at home. We can turn this world into a place of mutual fulfillment. We can end the fight by taking charge of the pain, and taking action, embracing who we are and what we can do. We can make turning this world into our peaceful heaven our reality.

 

We're hitting my core belief here, this is what has driven me up to now, something that I tend to forget from time to time but always comes back in times of hardship: we can make it happen because we are ready to try. We can make it because we're not alone. All we need is the momentum to realise that our dreams can turn reality into a world that makes sense to us and that WE. ARE. FUCKING. NOT. ALONE!

 

Together, we overcome. That's why we can't be taken down by individual misshaps: they don't affect us, they don't cut into our own strength, they affect our siblings instead and we jump to help them with the whole power of our might.

 

Together, we can take on more hits than this world can dish out.

 

This is my belief, thanks for helping me to sort this out.

 

Soundtrack: Project 46 ft. Olivia - Forgettable

[Renate]

Hell yeah. That is part of why I say it. It is not a hollow introduction sentence. It is uncommon, but not extremely rare to encounter people that give and keep on grinding. 

 

I especially keep an eye out so I can act offer support so people with a Mary Poppins bag worth of energy do not feel alone and/or forget to push on the brakes when needed. And there are more and more the more I pay attention! Haha

 

(And yeah do not use it as a justification for not taking time to take care of yourself  :p I am watching!)

 

ps - I am not saying this to toot my own horn, just confirming your observation.