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Deleted106527
Guest
About 2 years ago (When c0vid really hit and the lockdowns began here), I started journaling daily.
While there were many times when I doubted the importance/point of journaling (besides perhaps the nostalgic enjoyment of reading old journals and going "oh I am so much better now"), it's times like this week when I fully get to appreciate it.
Monday night, I was bored and did not want to sleep quite yet. So, I picked up an old journal (which goes from about September 2021 to February 2022. Bit of context: I finished school in August 2021 and knew I was gonna take a little break of 10-12 months while figuring out what to do in life (which lead me here)) and started reading.
Soon enough, I got sucked into it: It was like reading the memoirs of a person riding themselves into a near-psychosis.
The time from September to April has been so relaxed and un-demanding (I worked 10 hours a week and spent most of my free time action-faking), my comfort zone shrank to the size of a beach ball. Trivial tasks and interactions started to stress me, I avoided more and more things and people under the guise of "not needing to do that" or "saving energy for more important things", not realising I was just making it worse.
Luckily, I started to notice all of these (thought-)patterns while reading through the entries - and it was a frightening awakening: I got so caught up in my "tunnel" that I even started to project the situation/circumstances of that rather short phase of my life onto my whole life, making my outlook & confidence worse and worse. Realising all of that felt like waking up from a bad trance.
That and finally "doing stuff" again (new fulltime job, enrolling into uni etc...) really put things into perspective again. I'm glad I've grown so much in these few months, but I realise there's still 99% of a mountain in front of me to climb.
All of this also made me fully appreciate this absolute Masterpiece of a thread: My Candid Personal Story On Why You Can Never Take It Easy (An Ode To Discomfort) by @MTF (can't thank you enough for that).
If there's something you should take away from this post:
1. Don't get complacent/too comfortable (Keep on challenging yourself, you'll thank yourself in the long run).
2. Occasionally take a mental step back to check if you're running yourself into a tunnel or wall.
While there were many times when I doubted the importance/point of journaling (besides perhaps the nostalgic enjoyment of reading old journals and going "oh I am so much better now"), it's times like this week when I fully get to appreciate it.
Monday night, I was bored and did not want to sleep quite yet. So, I picked up an old journal (which goes from about September 2021 to February 2022. Bit of context: I finished school in August 2021 and knew I was gonna take a little break of 10-12 months while figuring out what to do in life (which lead me here)) and started reading.
Soon enough, I got sucked into it: It was like reading the memoirs of a person riding themselves into a near-psychosis.
The time from September to April has been so relaxed and un-demanding (I worked 10 hours a week and spent most of my free time action-faking), my comfort zone shrank to the size of a beach ball. Trivial tasks and interactions started to stress me, I avoided more and more things and people under the guise of "not needing to do that" or "saving energy for more important things", not realising I was just making it worse.
Luckily, I started to notice all of these (thought-)patterns while reading through the entries - and it was a frightening awakening: I got so caught up in my "tunnel" that I even started to project the situation/circumstances of that rather short phase of my life onto my whole life, making my outlook & confidence worse and worse. Realising all of that felt like waking up from a bad trance.
That and finally "doing stuff" again (new fulltime job, enrolling into uni etc...) really put things into perspective again. I'm glad I've grown so much in these few months, but I realise there's still 99% of a mountain in front of me to climb.
All of this also made me fully appreciate this absolute Masterpiece of a thread: My Candid Personal Story On Why You Can Never Take It Easy (An Ode To Discomfort) by @MTF (can't thank you enough for that).
If there's something you should take away from this post:
1. Don't get complacent/too comfortable (Keep on challenging yourself, you'll thank yourself in the long run).
2. Occasionally take a mental step back to check if you're running yourself into a tunnel or wall.
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