Tag: #change

It Ain’t Like The Movies

Am I a phoenix born again from the ashes, or am I shooting star, slowly fizzling away?
Whenever I think about life, this question is where I repeatedly return.

Everyone loves a hero’s story. Writers throughout history have realised that a story is only interesting if there is failure. Nobody wants to listen to a story about someone who was always perfect throughout their life. No, instead, we are engrossed by stories where the protagonist fails. But when they fail, they do not give up. Through perseverance, they overcome the grand challenge before them.

Unfortunately, life is not like the movies. If the current moment is to be the moment preceding my rise, it unfortunately feels far less poetic, and certainly far more boring. Whereas Rocky seems to be able to massively improve in the space of a 5-minute montage, the experience in real life seems to take a whole lot longer.

The little rays of sunshine

I’ve felt a little more upbeat this week. It’s quite hard to say why.

But then, looking for the perfect answer is like trying to catch lightning in a bottle. There’s something about the vagueries of life that no one can ever fully explain.

I do feel a bit better with my health compared to last week. My nausea has reduced somewhat, my sleep seems calmer and I feel more balanced and upright. But honestly, these are relatively minor.

Nothing has particularly shifted otherwise. It’s why I must admit that a mood uplift has hit me slightly by surprise.

Relearning how I learn

I’ve recently restarted my Dutch course. Half-way through a class, I started questioning whether I was actually any good at learning languages. I realised it was a somewhat farcical thought, considering I’ve been learning languages most of my life. Logically I am rather good at it, since I speak 3 languages fluently and have been learning three others.

To some extent everyone has doubts around their language abilities. That’s just part of the learners journey. Yet there is something about the course structure doesn’t particularly play to my strengths. It’s four hours of class twice a week. I don’t think such lengths of concentration are exactly my forte.

The lack of logic in recovery

Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash I’ve often wondered whether I will ever get better again, or whether constant fatigue is my new reality. Logic says that it will. There’s nothing identifiably chronic about my health. Yet logic also dictates that this should have been over by now too. In fact, if everything was dictated by logic, I […]

On living life without a plan

I’ve lived my life always planning ahead.
My whole generation had the idea of planning drilled into us. We needed to always know what we were doing next. Anything to the contrary was a failure. To be standing still was to be sinking in quicksand.

I actually rather liked planning. I ended up building career experience around it. A few years ago, I ended up crafting a GANTT chart with somewhat made-up dates on how to get a legislative bill through the UK Parliament in record time. It was planning that gave everyone a sense of reassurance despite the whole project being a terrible mess.

Yet here I sit without a plan. It’s the antithesis of what I’ve been taught and know.

Avoiding the trap of overanalysis

I’ve been feeling frustrated with my health. Despite building what is a rather aggressive approach through supplements and powders, it’s hard to see much empirical change.
In the meantime, all I can do is interpret the subtler signs. My energy is a bit better, and I have been doing more exercise. My eating is objectively better, and I’m generally improving in sleep.
But at some point, I have to recognise that there are some things that I can’t really know. And to be honest, even if I did, it would probably not change a whole lot anyway.

Playing the game of whac-a-mole in physical recovery

‘Do you ever feel like you’re playing whac-a-mole?’

Someone asked me this once. They explained the situation where you try one thing which only partially solves the problem. This then leads to other issues popping up.

It’s a metaphor that has stuck with me, because it describes my experience in many different domains exceptionally well. When I try one thing, a plethora of new moles seem to pop up. I find myself in a perennial battle of reactivity.

A slow shift into a more peaceful life

It feels like my life is hitting a new equilibrium point. My energy fluctuations feel less chaotic, and basic tasks are no longer feeling like a struggle.
Yesterday, I went to the sea-side on the Belgian coast. I went with a similar group of people to the ones I went with a year ago. It was a nice day, and the ocean waves are always a calming sight.
But what was noticeable was how much calmer I was about life compared to a year ago. Things are certainly not perfect, but I feel like things feel more settled.

Taking it one step at a time

I’ve been intentionally looking to walk more. Walking more however can sound a little dumb. After all, most of us walk everyday. It’s become so programmed into our living that the idea of intentionally walking just sounds like adding more needless travel into our day.

Yet for me, I’m finding walking one of the most adapted and well-suited forms of exercise I’ve intentionally done.