Look. Y’all don’t have to read this one but I figure if I don’t put this in a very public space, I’ll never commit or apply any of the advice I’m about to give to myself. You’re welcome to take it as well, but I won’t be offended if you don’t (secret: I won’t even know. Computer screens are funny that way).
But some story time first:
In case if you haven’t gathered from the lack of blog posts, I am busy. All of the time. I’ve had more free time in the last week than I have in the last eight months.
8. MONTHS.
People get more vacation time than that when they work regular jobs. So why am I keeping myself so busy?
It’s a combination of a lot of things: I’m a motivated human bean. I have a fear of being useless to society. I was raised to desire working and to desire the satisfaction of success and growth.
But let’s jump back to that second one I slid in the last sentence ever so casually:
“I have a fear of being useless to society.”
I’ll be honest about it that is absolutely why I created this blog in the first place. I got cancer. I had to pull myself out of society and therefore became useless.
Now I know, I know. You’re going to say, “But Dana! You talked about this in your last blog post, A Year In Review. Give us some new content!”
I will. Promise. But I gotta finish this thought first.
Yes. I don’t mind being busy, but I’ve never considered why I keep myself busy. Maybe it’s my Type A personality barging into my life. Perhaps it’s because I don’t know how to say no to people. It could be my motivation trying to get me to do everything all at once. Maybe I really do have a fear of being useless to society.
All of these are true. Guilty.
More than all of these, I think I have an unspoken fear of running out of time.
(This is the part where you gasp and say “This mid-life crisis fear hitting a 22-year-old! How unreasonable!”)
Not exactly. In case if we all forgot the reason why I started this blog (*cough* cancer), mortality is a lot closer to me than most young adults.
I should have this idiotic idea that I’m invincible as a 20-something-year-old and can drink all the alcohol, do all the stupid things and live.
And I do all of those dumb things, but mainly because I’m trying to get back normal life, not because of some insane complex society allows college kids to live by before they’re struck in the face by the metal baseball bat that is life.
But while I’m doing these ridiculously fun and menial things, there’s always something in the back of my brain going: this is pointless. Be useful why don’t you? You don’t have time like everyone else.
WHICH IS INSANE and self-centered! But here we are in the depths of my brain (quite the wild ride. We won’t delve too deep there).
So in this weird place titled “Dana’s Brain,” I have convinced myself that I must do all of the things this instant or I will run out of time and not be able to do all of the things because I’m running out of time.
I can’t explain it and I’m not going to try to. Instead, this is what I am telling myself:
- Knock it off. I love you and you’ve got time. More than that, you need to give yourself the time to exist. You’ll have time to be stressed out and busy later in life when you’re 40 with a full-time job and responsibilities.
- All those things you’re avoiding by being busy? You should address that stuff. It’s important too. No one dies saying “I’m really glad I’m kicking the can with all this stress on my back.”
- You’re okay. Really truly. Breathe. Learn to do some things for you and if you can’t, find someone to show you.
- Take more trips. That featured image you put at the top of this post of some cool mountains you saw in Colorado? You don’t have nearly enough photos of that. You definitely need more. 🙂
- Make sure you’re busy doing things you like. Otherwise, you’re going to hate everything.
Life is crazy and confusing. You know it. I know it. We’re all pretty honest here. So let’s have some fun in 2019 and remind ourselves of what’s really important.
Thanks for listening.
Until Next Time,
Dana
My Bright Corner 