Things You Don’t Plan For
Hey guys!
If you regularly follow my blog (sucks for you), you may have noticed that despite my invariable crankiness, I still make an effort to be somewhat optimistic. I’m not sure how much of that is an act and how much of it is genuine, ‘cuz you see — I’m kinda going through an existential crisis.
Have you seen the above movie, I Heart Huckabees? It’s one of my favorites and, most days, I feel like I’m the protagonist lost in my own romantic ideals and naivete and yet also grappling with this incessant morbidity and cynicism.
I feel at once completely in tune with my psychosis (if that’s possible) and yet completely detached from myself. While it is fuel to my creative projects to have these “who am I?” and “why am I here?” melodramatic ruminations, it’s also just plain annoying. Where’s the mute button to my thoughts ‘cuz I just want to take a break and relax for a bit. I want to be able to live in the moment without always wondering about the implications, and meeting my own (unreasonable) expectations. I want to put away this mental ruler and scale I have that’s constantly nagging my potential (hey, we saw what I did with my actual, physical scale – but it’s a lot harder to break-up with the one in my head!).
What I have the most trouble finding is balance. That word gets used and abused in health-talk more than that’s what she said among a group of frat boys. I mean, really, wtf is balance? Sometimes I feel like I’m running frantically away from a giant clock and yet, ironically, running straight to my grave. How do we find that balance between carpe diem and planning for our futures? It’s like that question we throw around when mixing booze and intellectualism — “if you knew when you were gonna go, would you do things differently?”
I know I’m being a tad morbid, but I can’t help it. I gotta tell you — If I knew I was gonna go sometime soon, I don’t think I’d be doing things the way I’m doing them now. Would you?
But it’s just not that simple. Those damn responsibilities creep up on even the most resiliently puerile among us. And, sometimes, we really do like to exert our control by being extra meticulous at planning, weighing, and measuring life. Some of us may even get really good at planning our meals, tracking our calories, calculating our running speed, beating records, and monitoring our weight loss. Some of us, I’m sure, even obsess over the tangible and over the ability to track and measure and see life change before our eyes by our very own doing.
So it’s no wonder if we’re shocked when reminded that we can’t plan for everything. When we’re stumped that while we were too busy planning and measuring we lost sight of the very person doing the planning and measuring. When we’re thrown off by the state of things once we finally step back from the details to look at the big picture.
And, as a side note, I totally just annoyed my co-worker (who walked in all cheery this morning) with an assault of my philosophical musings. Note to self: you can’t plan everything, but you should plan to keep quiet every now and then.
And with that, I’m off!
How do you keep balance in your life?
<3,
The Cranky One
7 People have left comments on this post
I too inject more optimism into my blog than I sometimes feel. I’ve always believed “fake it till you feel it” and mostly it works. I think we all go through this tug of war when trying to find balance. Life isn’t really all that balanced. The balls rolls one way, then the other. How could we ever actually stay calm and collected through that? The best thing I think is to try to constantly put yourself in perspective. We can’t plan for everything, but the majority of what comes into our life is small. It might not seem that way at the time, but it probably is. I was JUST thinking this morning about how miserable I used to be at my corporate job. How I honestly felt like I was the most unhappy person in the whole world. And now, I barely even think about that place. A few months ago, that misery was infecting my entire life, and now, I’ve all but forgotten it. It makes me realize the responsibility WE have in our own feelings. That’s something my hubby has been trying to tell me for ages, but I, too, get so lost in the search for balance and meaning in it all that I sometimes don’t hear reason.
Hang in there, my friend.
Reading “No Exit” put me in a weird, out of body funk for weeks. It was bizarre and not actually very pleasant, so I’m sort of afraid to watch this.
I hope this doesn’t come out sounding bad, but I think you may want to look into seeing a therapist. If you have insurance, it covers the sessions… and somehow it may help. You may think that you already “know all the answers” but it may take somebody that completely doesn’t know you or has the same goals as you (I think some of us here may be biased because we may have the same obsessive compulsions) to give it to you straight and “snap you out of it.” How WOULD you live if you knew there was less time to live? Eat a few extra vegan brownies… or non-vegan ones? Stop worrying about the to-do list and go out with your boyfriend… or plop yourself on the couch and turn your brain off for a night while watching trashy tv? Maybe it’s time to force yourself to do some of those things. I plan a million things for myself each day, but then I blow some (or all) of them off. You gotta live a little!! Email me if you need to talk
No, Elina, I don’t think that sounds bad at all. I am actually already seeing a therapist haha. And I admit that shamelessly! I think I’m just searching to find peace in these questions rather than answers.
I know you have virtually no free time in your hectic schedule but grab a moment and look into ‘mindfulness’ and mindful meditation. I too have a brain that won’t shut up and can totally miss what’s going on around me due to the distractions in my head. Mindfulness gives you a way of learning to just tune out the overactive mind and just not engage with it.
I usually deal with balance by allowing myself to get OUT of balance every once in a while… it reminds me WHY I like the balance so much! Hang in there.
Agreed with Sagan – I am happy to do my workouts, eat my veggies, work hard at work, go to sleep early, etc… as long as I know I CAN OCCASIONALLY drink wine and eat chocolate, stay up ’til sunrise, and eat too much. A little bit of excess makes the mundane much more tolerable (and provides reference – I feel MUCH BETTER after a day of veggies and rest than wine and chocolate).