Like All Things, This Too Shall Pass
Do you ever have those days where it feels like you’ve overextended yourself so much that you’re now feeling paralyzed? The hyper-productivity exchanges itself with the lethargy of the highest order. Life gets so overwhelming & overbearing that you just want a fresh start.
It’s been around 20 days since I last felt fresh & energetic. It’s not a big deal. I’m not depressed or sad. I’m just unmotivated and unexcited. We all have our ups and downs but I’m starting to despise myself for it. It’s a scary place to be in because I don’t have a reason to be sad but I’m also not especially happy even though life is pretty amazing.
It’s not the first time I’ve spent living alone in a big house but it’s the first time I feel like I do not enjoy it. A lot of my friends would die to get an opportunity to live by themselves. But perhaps, it’s because they’ve not experienced how caging it is to do housework. Cleaning the house, watering the plants in the garden, making my own dinner, there’s tons of work that I have but I procrastinate. I lay on the bed all day, watching shows & eating junk as the vessels pile up in the sink and the clothes keep sitting in the laundry basket. I even skip meals sometimes because washing dishes is too much work.
*Ding Dong*
A couple of doorbells have gone unanswered because I did not think that it was important enough for me to get up. The last time I felt this unwillingness for trivial tasks was when I was done with exams. And like everything else, once you give yourself into a habit, your body adapts to it.
I told myself I would not force myself to hit the gym if I didn’t feel like it, that I wouldn’t write if I didn’t feel fresh and that’s what I did. Maybe that’s all the more reason I’m feeling shittier than I used to. Every day, I go to bed thinking tomorrow is going to be the day I change things and take it one day at a time. But we all know how this ends.
I’m waiting for tomorrow to start living. A small 5-minute effort is being put off until it compounds to a half an hour effort. The idea that life is now is scary because I’m unsatisfied with what I am doing today. It’s become so easy for me to make an excuse to not do something and lower my sense of self. I think most of us have had this inexplicable feeling of nothingness in one’s day, waiting for it to pass and hoping for a better tomorrow. But tomorrow is always tomorrow and today is today, gloomy and grey.
“Like all things, this too shall pass”.
I’m not sure where I read this, but it gives me hope. It reminds me of the power of impermanence. All things are temporary, both good and bad. Time passes, day passes, and months pass. But nothing stops. In 100 years, none of us will be alive. And that too shall pass. Every storm will come to an end. No matter how dark the clouds are today, the sun will rise tomorrow.
These words are a winner’s nightmare and a loser's hope call. It’s the most grounding wisdom I try to remind myself of. Because that means I will be able to change my tomorrow to today as soon as I take action.
Just because today is bad, doesn’t mean tomorrow has to be.
I’ve learned from my behavioral patterns that every time I push myself to work too hard for too long, I have a recoil effect that makes me want to avoid any sort of work. The recoil from the gun is as strong as the force of the bullet. That’s reassuring in a way because it means that it’s okay to have unproductive & less exciting days.
A body that tends to be in motion, stays in motion. A body that tends to be at rest, stays at rest. A very Newton way of saying that if you don’t take action, you cannot beat procrastination.
Everything becomes a little easier as you go. It’s like the rehab of procrastination. Starting again and resetting is hard and right now, I’m only writing about it, but I hope that if we ever need to, we begin.
Ctrl Alt Delete? No, Ctrl Alt Grow.
Our lives don’t have to be on the same trajectory as it is today. You can hit as many resets as you want. Give yourself a fresh start, each day. And when you finish with a day, be done with it completely.
Putting off an easy thing makes it difficult and putting off a hard one makes it impossible — George H. Lorimer
It’s okay that you’ve procrastinated for so many days. But remember that you’re only increasing the workload for tomorrow. Today is your best day. Sort them out simply and slowly. It’ll feel great.
Seriously, moms are full-time superheroes. If someone asks me if my mom works, I’d say yes. She’s been managing a team of 4 independent humans with different opinions and tastes yet manages to keep them happy and productive in her workspace called home. If that’s not a business leader, I don’t know who is.
This is my 50th article and I’m grateful that I’ve picked up a habit of writing. I’m fortunate that there are a lot of people who resonate with what I want to write for myself. Every article is like a dictionary collection to go back to whenever I’m feeling the things I do.
Cheers!
I run my own podcast, Within 5 Minutes, which is being heard in around 52+ countries currently. It’s a podcast on self-help and personal development and I have been running out of personal interest to help myself and anyone else who may need to hear something reassuring yet realistic. You can find the podcast here — https://linktr.ee/hacchuu.
I also have my own blog, which hasn’t yet picked up the pace but which will definitely become the brand I stand for — https://ctrlaltgrow.com/
Again, if you wish to contact me for any sort of feedback, opinion, or casual conversation, feel free to do so.
You can help me out by buying me a coffee! — https://www.buymeacoffee.com/hacchuu
Instagram — @hacchuu
Email — harsh@ctrlaltgrow.com
