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 […]
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.
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.
‘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.
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.
Photo by Valentin Bolder on Unsplash I turned 33 today. For some, birthdays are about celebration, and having a moment to feel special. For others, it elicits a sense of worry, confronting us to the inevitable march of time. My somewhat surprising reaction when the clock struck midnight was a sense of lightness. I think […]
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.
I’ve returned to the UK for the weekend. Partly to see my parents. Partly because I couldn’t change my train ticket.
It is quite novel being back. This is the land of my birth after all. But I’ve been away for long enough now that it isn’t really my home, and I was always a bit too weird and ineligible to really fit in a whole lot anyway.
I don’t think people understand the layered nature of marginalisation. Some people have a broader understanding of intolerance, but it’s often assumed to be at the level of outright racism or obvious discrimination.
But behind the everyday interactions, there’s a whole layer of systems created based upon the mainstream assumptions. If you don’t fit in that mould, you often face an uphill struggle in many different areas of life.
Photo by Aliaksei Lepik on Unsplash In the past, I’ve bemoaned the lack of warmth people have. Maybe it’s a capital city thing, but the level of hyper-independence makes it nigh on impossible to have a sustained relationship with anyone. People are too emotionally unavailable, or too busy doing their own thing. Fast forward to […]