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 […]
A few days ago, I went to the cash machine, then walked directly to the supermarket. I bought a full load of groceries and walked back home.
I had no major fatigue or back pain flaring up. Believe it or not, this was notable progress.
It sounds so insignificant, but in the context of what I’ve been experiencing, this is a sign that I can slowly rely on my body again. It’s also incrementally more than I’ve been able to do in the last few weeks, and a much better bodily response than I’ve had in years.
For the first time, I played with the notion that I may never recover. Perhaps the energy of old will never return. My new existence is one of exhaustion and management.
This may sound defeatist, but I don’t think it is. I do believe that I will recover, slowly, but surely. But considering how long this has gone on, and realistically how far off anyone’s expectation this has been, it’s not beyond the realms of possibility to think that I may never get better.
Rather than sounding bleak, there is a sense of simplifcation that comes with such a thought. No longer do I need to constantly find this something that I need to fight. No longer do I need to feel like I am delaying my life to a magical ‘when’ time. It allows me to be present, and not worry too much about the future. There is a freedom in this.
For one reason or another, I started learning sanskrit this week.
I use an online language platform called Italki. It’s basically a place where you can find teachers and organise classes online. It’s where I also found my Bengali teacher too.
I took a chance and went with a teacher who was a lot older. His profile said he had taught in Sanskrit for over forty years. It was a slightly chaotic profile, far from the slicker, more polished video presentation you get from others.
I’ve had two classes with this teacher so far. His teaching method goes against most rules around modern western education pedagogy.
Each of us has our own ‘personal narrative’. It reflects how we see ourselves, and so also how we see the world. For example, some people speak with a timidness. They talk about how they’re nothing special. To them, they had a ‘boring’ upbringing.
It’s not a surprise that such people aren’t particularly proud about where they’re from. Nor do they tend to be as confident either.
Compare that to someone who has a much more involved story about how they grew up. Their tales of upbringing can sound like a dazzling adventure.
The big irony is that these two stories could be the exact same person. It’s not really the history that matters, but the story crafted from it.
This is something I’ve understood. I’ve worked hard to shift my personal narrative from one that feels quite tragic to one of growth. Yet the last few weeks have also demonstrated a further layer that I never realised. My personal narrative was missing large segments.
One of the big potential traps in modern day society is to lose that spark.
It’s particularly visible in a city like Brussels. So many people come here with big hopes and expectations. The reality of the clunking system can be pretty soul crushing if we’re not careful.
It’s also very visible. When we look people in the eyes, we can see if there is a spark behind it or not. Once someone has lost their spark, it feels like their soul has been tuned down to power-save mode.
Whilst burnout is often assumed to be about overwork, it can just as well be a loss of hope. That was certainly the case for me. Day by day, I had my desires ever increasingly compromised. By the end, I had little will to leave my bed.
Empty Sunday mornings are pretty good days to do some tidying.
I’ve accumulated so many bits of paper in the last few years that it has started to overflow. My office space has become generally noisy, to the point where the clutter has become a mainstay on desk spaces.
A tidy-up has been very much overdue. And whilst I would like to pretend that I have such saintly energy that I just simply decided to tidy, the truth was that I pushed myself into it. Last night, I spent about an hour looking for my old passport. Turns out, I needed to find an old visa number stamped on it.
I left half the papers on the floor. I had made it so messy that I forced my own hand in needing to tidy it up this morning.
Photo by Lisa Hobbs on Unsplash I’m sure you’ve heard about all sorts of theories around health hacks before. Whether it’s an Atkins diet, celery juicing, high protein or some other funky diet. Whilst I’m not against such diets, they only seem to work for a certain group of people. For me, I’ve tried many […]
Competitive culture is getting us obsessed with grinding. The answer to any setback in life just seems to be to try harder. But grinding is not healthy. And often, it’s actually very counterproductive.
It is true that many valuable things require hard work. Healthy relationships, successful careers and good fitness take work. But hard work is different to grinding.
This is something I’ve had to learn the hard way.
Since April, I feel like I’m making progress. I’m putting in effort, and I’m seeing results.
This is in stark contrast to the last twelve months. Things have felt a struggle. There was a constant sense of ‘two steps forward, one step back’. I wasn’t in control of my body. My energy levels felt like a daily roll of the dice. I wasn’t clear with where I was going.
Right now, I feel like being in flow with life. Before, I felt like I was a boat paddling against the currents of the river. Now, I feel like I’m paddling with it.
So what changed?