One of my most gravest mistakes, and maybe yours too.
Me
A blunder I have made so many times and it haunts me till this day. One of the gravest mistakes of my life, and here I shall share it to all of you so you can stay far, far away from this:
You don’t have to make it big, death shall come, enjoy the now.
Bottled down this is the lesson. If you want to know more you can read on. Let’s begin.
I create this for you but also partly for me. I think this is something you should know, so now, you know.
The mistake
The mistake is focusing on doing too much to reach a spectacular role of this world. For me, it was to become a big shot writer and I tried so so hard, did so so much, and what’s worse, is because of all this pressure to do more. I did less.
Everyday was filled with stress and productivity with the requirement to do more I could never enjoy the simple pleasures, such as:
- Chilling with my family
- Sleeping
- Reading something nice
- A beautiful walk
- Some nice food
Nothing. Nothing at all in the day did I like.
Now to clear a misconception. Some people think it’s best to hustle and bustle, make your life hard now and live like a king later.
This is very much try but I think people forget to mention something. In the process of self-improvement, like reading, exercising, journaling. There is a joy to these activities.
- Exercising-The euphoria after it is immeasurable, you just feel pleased with yourself and just generally and genuinely happy
- Reading-It’s a peaceful joy, not having to do much just relax and kinda escape I guess, but in a healthy and good way as long as it is in moderation which for most it is
- Journalling-A cloudy, overwhelmed mind. There is one amazing cure, the journal. Completely emptying your mind and the mental clarity afterwards is just bliss, pure bliss
Now it goes back to a quote I made myself that I love dearly. “Good is good, bad is bad” I think people seem to forget that a cake is bad, in all ways, likewise a broccoli is good, it gives one a pleasant feeling after being eaten whilst a cake at least for me I feel closer to vomiting and even if that were not the case I don’t really feel truly happy or pleased because of it.
Now if doing all these things actually were good for me, then why did I feel so bad when I did good things, as in, why was I overwhelmed by all the good things?
Putting the obvious aside (Too much of everything is bad, even good things.) It was the stress, when I did something great I couldn’t treasure the moment as my mind was straight away thinking about what to do next. Simply, I was distracted by too much, there was too much on my plate, when I ate I only began to dread what was next not to enjoy what I ate.
(Bonus: Even if something is good for you after doing it for so long and repeatedly stuffing yourself, similar to food, you begin to distaste it, you need regular breaks and no force feeding)
The take-away
Now, to leave this problem/mistake all you really need to do is five things:
- Be more easier on yourself. Learn to give yourself a break to reduce how much is on your plate.
- Take things more slow. This shall allow you to enjoy the moment as much as you can whilst also pursuing a goal.
- Remember death. This shall allow you to not take any moment for granted. What’s the point of living a hard life for a future that shall never come? Exercise, read, journal, but do it to an extent which is actually fun.
- Careless about fame, power etc. You could do this by remembering death but nonetheless, it is key to forget about fame and power, it is not the most important nor even close to the things that really matter.
- Love. Realize the beauty of the world, of nature, of friends, of family, of writing, of swimming, of exercising, of reading. Realize the joy in everything.
Lastly, reduce the things on your get-to-do list. A heavy list would just reduce the fun of everyday plus even reducing how much you actually can get done in a given day.
Remember, live life with purpose, meaning, and love for everyday.
Best be to all.
