Am I Overwhelmed, or Just Lazy?
It’s a hard pill to swallow.
If I had a dollar for every time I rationalized procrastination simply by telling myself “it’s okay, you have a lot going on right now”… I’d have an embarrassing amount of money.
Being overwhelmed can be a hard circumstance to overcome, and it can absolutely affect productivity levels. Your brain has too many things to focus on so it just settles on nothing, and before you know it it’s been 3 hours and you’re balls deep in a Riverdale binge on Netflix.
I used to call times like this “self-care”. But was it really? Was I truly taking care of myself? Or was I just perpetuating the cycle of guilt and self-deprecating thoughts about my abilities to be an ‘adult’?
I recently took a hard look at the things that were making me feel overwhelmed and I truly laughed. My most common stressors include laundry, home improvement projects, cleaning, and keeping up relationships. Oh, you mean just the common everyday things that come with being alive? YUP. Sure, there are some genuinely stressful things that I deal with at work and in life but for the most part.. that was it.
Deciding to take a look at the why opened a whole sh*tload of introspection and I realized that it's not the mountain of tasks that’s stressful, it’s me that stressing me out. I procrastinate mundane everyday tasks that build up and build up until it triggers my anxiety, in turn giving myself an excuse to put it off even longer.
That’s not being overwhelmed. That’s self-sabotage.
As a twenty-eight-year-old, I am very aware of my triggers. I am very aware of what causes me to fall down into an anxiety rabbit hole, so why do I allow myself to let it happen?
Why do I let laundry, both clean and dirty pile-up, knowing it’s going to lead to stressful work mornings when I can’t find anything to wear? Why do I put off cleaning the bathrooms when I know it’s going to make me feel dirty and like I am an incompetent wife and homeowner? Why do I choose to not answer text messages when I know staring at the new message notification bubble for a week after I receive the text is going to make me feel like I am a bad friend/daughter/coworker?
It’s because I’m lazy, that’s why. I am not caring about my future self the way I should. I am not setting her up for success, and that’s a crying shame. Who will look out for future me if I don’t? My husband is always thinking about past, current, and future me, so why don’t I?
The nuances of mental health struggles are fathomless and I can only speak on my own. And I know I am very fortunate to be able to identify my triggers and I have the luxury of small-time problems. But there is a certain type of self-loathing that comes with knowing you could have prevented an anxiety spiral, but you chose not to.
I’m done enabling my own anxiety.
I’m done choosing TV and scrolling on phone over the small chores and projects that would set future me up for happiness and true self-care. I’m implementing the 10-Minute Rule in my life. If a task is going to take roughly ten minutes or less, just. do. it. now. I must start investing more in myself, and I think this is a good place to start.
Realizing you’ve been willfully mistaking your laziness for being overwhelmed doesn’t feel that great. It feels like regret and like you’ve just failed at something else. But remember, it’s okay. There are going to be times when being lazy is the right choice to make for your physical and emotional health. Ya girl is most definitely not giving up her Riverdale binges. But my goal here is to learn how to identify those instances and tell them apart from times when my laziness is being louder than my gut. And with that, I am promising to give myself every chance I can to be the best version of myself that I can be.
Stay rooted,
Erin
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