Taking a Breather

Hey you.

Yes, you. 🥰

This will be different from my other dials, where I just thought why not share a bit of what’s happening in my life these past few months?

I am writing this with a terrible cold, my eyes are bloodshot red and the Chelsea-City game is on, so let me summarise a couple of reflections over this past year or so.

Stop comparing. I know I’ve gone on about how you should persevere through tough times and see it through, but it is now that I am beginning to reap the negatives of it. A lot has happened in my life, and a lot does keep happening, sometimes it feels like we are catching up trying to solve the last problem just when the next one appears.

I’m sure you can relate. Feeling like the world’s moving too fast, everyone seems like they got their shit together, and you’re the only one left out ‘cause you feel like you are not ‘doing enough’.

Some of you may even feel that way towards me, like I have it all figured out.

I promise you, I don’t.

I’m still as clueless, or even more so than I was when I first started all this, because the more problems I solve, the more appear.

We all are moving in life at our own pace, in our own vehicles, with our own fuel capacities.

Just because someone is speeding life in a Lamborghini, doesn’t mean he’s gonna last the highway. Your Maruti 800 might take the win there. So don’t fret.

Take Breaks. For context, I have been balancing my day job (4 pm - 1 am), this newsletter, and my business (close to a year now) since the start of this year.

I have been putting in 14, 15 hour work days, working on weekends, thinking about whether if I published the week’s dial correctly or not, whether I have taken in all aspects when I was doing market research for my business, and a hundred other things.

It was work-work balance. And has been that way until the past week.

I realized that I had not dealt with a lot of stuff when it happened, and it keeps coming back to haunt me in my day and night dreams. I am approaching the limit of physical and mental exhaustion. I feel burned out.

I remember telling myself, ‘I am so close to that breakthrough’ in terms of my business, but what I didn’t realize is that I am equally as close to a breakdown.

Remember kids, don’t be an idiot like me. I got so invested into the finer details: crossing the T’s, dotting the I’s, that I didn’t happen to see the bigger picture: my health, my relationships with people, the stuff of life in essence.

Take that break. Don’t feel guilty. You can only be more creative when you’re at your best.

Recharge. Chill.

And in time, be back like you never left.

Be Grateful. Practice gratefulness every day. Be grateful for every little thing you have in your life. Look around your room, and practice on objects that you wouldn’t usually think about.

I am grateful for my blanket and my desk mat.

These are things you would never think about after you’ve bought them, but by practicing gratefulness for ‘indifferent’ things such as these, you learn to appreciate the bigger stuff of everyday life.

Your family, your people, your friends, your relationships.

You won’t ever take anything for granted ever again.

And that’s it! Hope you got some value from this, now let me get back to the match.

Sayonara. 👋