Day 165 – Stressed but stable

Sometimes the day comes, that I regret being a part of civilised world. You know, all that technological advance, people racing through lives, chasing updates on projects, because there are some burning priorities…

…but for whom. For whom are they so important. Certainly not for me, nor for the people that chase them. They are probably not even important for senior leadership, although in most companies at this level, you don’t really think anymore if it is important to you, because it is probably merged with your subconscious, and no longer assessed logically. So why do we stress ourselves over priorities that don’t matter to us?

I keep asking myself this question. I think we fell so far into this trap of chasing more, bigger, better and so on, without ever questioning the root cause. I don’t like the phrase “rat race”, because it got overused by many, over decades. Also I don’t like comparison of humans to rats, even if they behave a bit erratic and lacking logic, or follow patterns without ever questioning if they should. We might be more intelligent than rats, but we certainly are nowhere near their rate of survival, and their capabilities to exist in the toughest corners of the Earth. Don’t get me wrong, we do have capability, and power to achieve much more than we are supposed to. There are countless examples of people surviving against all odds, but as a species, and in numbers, I’m afraid we have rather disbalance here.

Today I reached the boiling point at one time, when I was so pushed by so many priorities of others, that I forgot, like the said “rat”, who am I, and what about me? It was sad, and frustrating to the point where I even raised my voice, when my wife asked me if I go with her for a jog, and I immediately felt even worse. Not for the work, or the pressure, but for me allowing the thoughts getting the best of me, and getting angry at one of two most precious elements of my life – her.

Lessons learned, and mental training over the last couple of years, pays back, I think. Why I say that is because I find myself identifying such situations much much faster, than I used to in the past. It’s like a switch that goes immediately, when the wrong behaviour is detected. It’s not yet the thing that I try to achieve, which would be to detect the upcoming behaviour, prior to it happening, but it’s still a massive improvement over impatience, and emotional lack of control that many of us are cursed with, these days. I no longer need to cool down over some time, start dwelling and assessing if what I did was okay, and then after that time start regretting and trying to fix this. No. Now I know when I do something undesired pretty much instantly, skip the process of dwelling and thinking, because my brain is on autopilot, and I address these things on the spot.

This is what I did. I locked my calendar, locked my laptop, and loud enough I said that nothing is more important than my life, my family, my mental health, and I will not sacrifice any of it, because some other person wants to make more money. Sounds cliche, but this is how it was.

It took me 5 minutes, to dress up, put my shoes on, close the door, and with pleasure…

…slowly run away with my wife. How it should be.

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