The most precious commodity in our word today is time
And it's the number one reason that we're all stressed out- because we're trying to fight against it and are losing.
I'll be the first to say that I'm overscheduled, overcommitted, and it's wearing. me. down.
I can get 9 hours of sleep for a week straight and STILL be exhausted- because in order to get those 9 hours something else has to give.
But what's more important? Sleep or a commitment?
The long run vs the present?
I used to pick the present.
Constantly committing to ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING anyone ever asked me to come to or be a part of.
It was fun
it was chaotic
I WAS THE YES GIRL.
And then I had a break.
You can see it documented quite well on some far earlier blogposts (think August-ish)
And then through all those breakdowns and stressing and empty hollowness
I STILL persisted in being strictly scheduled, heavily weighed down with commitments.
Not that they were all serious and hard work- I made lots of plans with friends and spent lots of time building and furthering relationships, planning parties, etcc.
and then I got a concussion.
And the 3 weeks hiatus from my life was what it took to bring me into perspective.
Not stress attacks
Not collapsing from exhaustion
BRAIN DAMAGE.
Call me crazy.....
But I've learned now. I'm like an addict- addicted to overscheduling and overcommitting myself. Thank God my mom has been here for me to tell me no when I want to say yes, to force me to rest when I want to give even though I have nothing less.
Because in committing to something, any arbitrary thing, you're saying yes to devote your WHOLE energy to it, your BEST self. And there's only so much of me, with so much energy, to go around.
By committing to everything, I was truly devoted to nothing.
I sucked as a friend.
I sucked as a sister.
I sucked as a student council member, confidante, mentor, runner, leader, student, etc.- you name it, I STUNK IT UP.
I was a hollow, emotionless, empathy-lacking, self-absorbed shell of a person.
And some days, I still am; but, I'm working on it.
Each and every day I have mandatory commitments that i HAVE to make the time for.
And then
I've learned to start saying no.
That doesn't mean I'm at the point where I don't feel bad about it- but it does mean that those commitments I DO have I can be more free to give myself fully in because I'm not overexhausted from doing a bajillion other things or just stopping by on the way to something else in between having to do this or that.
The more I work at it, the better I get.
Commitments are like the stickers that stick to the Wimmicks: they only stick if you let them- you only HAVE them if you WANT them. If you say no or leave space open, then sure sometimes unexpected opportunities/frustrations/circumstances will occur but for the most part you WON'T HAVE EVERY SECOND of your life accounted for.
The more I work at it, the better for me.
I've started feeling emotion again (not Dexter anymore. YAY!)
I've actually started sleeping soundly and feeling energized WITHOUT coffee...
My family life is improving. I stayed home ALL WEEKEND. Granted, some of that time I was busy with my own school work and resting, but I also just was THERE.
That probably made me sound like a loser....but I don't really care.
There's something powerful in just being HOME, PRESENT in the family life. My mom came and told me how nice it was just to have me around- I could help her out or run an errand or two and engage in our family dinners and just relax.
It's amazing what leaving space in a schedule/on a calendar can do. You get time to be productive, time to be interactive, time to rest, time to just be yourself!
Give it a try.
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Friday, November 8, 2013
Thursday, November 7, 2013
c'est degoutant
in cas you were wondering...EmergenC is MUCH better than Airborne +Energy packets
seriously.....
I thought emergenC was bad, but at least it has little fizzies that pop in your mouth!
Airborne is just sickly sweet.
It's not absolutely terrible...it's just kinda awful.
Ah the sick-prevention life.
seriously.....
I thought emergenC was bad, but at least it has little fizzies that pop in your mouth!
Airborne is just sickly sweet.
It's not absolutely terrible...it's just kinda awful.
Ah the sick-prevention life.
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
BE. BOLD.
"Therefore do not throw away your boldness, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised"
~Hebrews 10:35-36
~Hebrews 10:35-36
Friday, November 1, 2013
it's coming
inching closer every day
stress, fear, chaos, nothingness in its wake
is the end of my life as I know it.
Cross country is almost over.
The air has grown cool and crisp,
with gentle breezes that chill and thrill
and soft sunshine that warms and delights and invites
people to laugh and be giddy.
Runners lace up their shoes, switch their shorts for tights
and grab their most awesome beanies and arm warmers
in preparation for some throat burning leg turning.
It's championship season.
I absolutely love this part of the year.
But right now, today, this year, I hate it.
All my life- well for half of it, actually.
I've been a runner.
I've run cross country, track, adventure races, 5ks, fun runs, trail runs, you name it, I've run it.
I eat, sleep, breathe, and think running. ALL THE TIME.
Even when I don't want it to affect something, it does, because as runner is who I've become.
Doing something for 9 years creates more than muscle memory- it creates a lifestyle,
a thought process
a sisterhood.
All of that is about to end for me.
18 days from today will be the last time I step up to run a cross country race as a member of a team.
The last time I push my body into exhaustion and oxygen deficit for my school.
What's going to happen when I'm done?
I'll take a WHOLE LOT more naps:)
And won't have to pee after every single class
and my calves will fit into boots
and my jeans will fit both my thighs AND waist AT THE SAME TIME (okay probably not..that's just wishful thinking)
But, what will I tell people I do? Cross country is my go-to thing.
I AM a cross country runner .
But will I always be one? Or will I have to say I WAS a cross country runner?
It feels like just yesterday I stepped foot onto the local soccer fields but headed to the side not the middle of the field for my first cross country practice.
I can remember to this day the first thing I said to my mom after that day of practice "I have never sweat so much in my life or hurt so badly. It was terrible... Can I go back tomorrow?"
And I've been going back ever since.
But pretty soon I'll have nothing to go back to-
only something to look back on.
WHO WILL I BE?!?!
I can think about that when the time comes.
I'm not going to worry about it anymore than the thoughts I just put down
Because I'm a cross country runner- not a has been, not a once was, yet.
I will be.
18 days
So I've gotta make the most of them.
stress, fear, chaos, nothingness in its wake
is the end of my life as I know it.
Cross country is almost over.
The air has grown cool and crisp,
with gentle breezes that chill and thrill
and soft sunshine that warms and delights and invites
people to laugh and be giddy.
Runners lace up their shoes, switch their shorts for tights
and grab their most awesome beanies and arm warmers
in preparation for some throat burning leg turning.
It's championship season.
I absolutely love this part of the year.
But right now, today, this year, I hate it.
All my life- well for half of it, actually.
I've been a runner.
I've run cross country, track, adventure races, 5ks, fun runs, trail runs, you name it, I've run it.
I eat, sleep, breathe, and think running. ALL THE TIME.
Even when I don't want it to affect something, it does, because as runner is who I've become.
Doing something for 9 years creates more than muscle memory- it creates a lifestyle,
a thought process
a sisterhood.
All of that is about to end for me.
18 days from today will be the last time I step up to run a cross country race as a member of a team.
The last time I push my body into exhaustion and oxygen deficit for my school.
What's going to happen when I'm done?
I'll take a WHOLE LOT more naps:)
And won't have to pee after every single class
and my calves will fit into boots
and my jeans will fit both my thighs AND waist AT THE SAME TIME (okay probably not..that's just wishful thinking)
But, what will I tell people I do? Cross country is my go-to thing.
I AM a cross country runner .
But will I always be one? Or will I have to say I WAS a cross country runner?
It feels like just yesterday I stepped foot onto the local soccer fields but headed to the side not the middle of the field for my first cross country practice.
I can remember to this day the first thing I said to my mom after that day of practice "I have never sweat so much in my life or hurt so badly. It was terrible... Can I go back tomorrow?"
And I've been going back ever since.
But pretty soon I'll have nothing to go back to-
only something to look back on.
WHO WILL I BE?!?!
I can think about that when the time comes.
I'm not going to worry about it anymore than the thoughts I just put down
Because I'm a cross country runner- not a has been, not a once was, yet.
I will be.
18 days
So I've gotta make the most of them.
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
it's insane
I have so many things running through my head
so many thoughts- my brain feels like it's fri'ed
Delian vs the Peloponnese
was a war done because no one wanted domination by just one city
it was all the fault of ole' Pericles
who worked to increase involvement in democracy
a stipend you could have
if a seat in the assembly you'd grab
as you marveled at the Parthenon
(though ya can't see much now since it's all gone)
and thought of Athena's war-like stare
warning Persians to beware
-thanks to Phidias' carving
(both she and Zeus at Olympia left people marveling)
Before the war
was the golden age
where sculptors, writers, and many a sage
put Athens at the apex of the world's intellectual stage;
Socrates questioned- but he also corrupted,
Plato idealized but democracy he distrusted,
Aristotle investigated with a thirst never satiated
and tutored the greatest, most delusional ruler of all.
Euripides wrote of man's many a flaw-
yet to Aeshylus it was the will of the gods who caused men to fall.
Aophocles had Oedipus and Antigone and the like
whereas Aristophanes showed us The Birds' sad plight.
Herodotus wrote his "Histories"
though thanks to exaggeration, accurate it may not be.
Thuycidides came behind
with a more scientific mind
to remember the speeches of Pericles
and the war of the Delians vs. the Peloponnese.
Myron loved human form
and through his discus thrower showed us what should be the norm
and then last was hippocrates
who found natural, not divine origins of disease.
Such were the thinkers, the writers, the sages
who, in a few years in athens, created works that have lasted the ages.
Philip of Macedonia
had a heart made of stone -yuh.
With masterful strategy
he brought union to all of Greece
but fell to his first wife's blow
(we're nearly positive, but will never quite know).
Alex the great was the awesomest ruler who lived
his mom was really violent- just wanted everything for her kid
he lived in delusions that his daddy was Zeus
and when it came to war he never allowed a truce.
Pharaoh of Egypt, King of Babylon, Persia, and Greece
the Gordian knot he cut through
but at Darius' end he cried (boohoo)
as only a king can kill a king
and D's assistants had done the thing.
He may have been crazy
and that you can well-see
when he'd charge to cause a fright
before other armies (like the Persians at the Granicus) could build up might.
A philosopher, too,
was this man everyone knew.
Intellect he craved
to be learned, taught, shared, and saved.
His library and lighthouse were marvels of form
and Macedionian dress he ditched and chose Persian as the norm.
He did love his alcohol
though it may have been his one downfall
causing first destruction of Persep.
and later maybe his death.
After Greece came Rome
and Romulus with his heart of stone
who in 753
brought on the building of the 7-hill city
Latins met their end
at the hands of the Etruscans
who brought forth a monarchy
that was short lived, as you can see
when after 509
Republic became the government of the time.
And slowly but surely this nation did grow
into an empire all the world would come to know.
They built The Forum and Agora,
took on the Greek style amphora,
and many other aspects of Greek life they did, too
gods, art, sculptures, and architecture (the Greeks just seemed to know what to do)
and that's all ifeel like writing
cause my teacher looks like she's going to be smiting
me any minute
if I don't stop typing and get with it.
so many thoughts- my brain feels like it's fri'ed
Delian vs the Peloponnese
was a war done because no one wanted domination by just one city
it was all the fault of ole' Pericles
who worked to increase involvement in democracy
a stipend you could have
if a seat in the assembly you'd grab
as you marveled at the Parthenon
(though ya can't see much now since it's all gone)
and thought of Athena's war-like stare
warning Persians to beware
-thanks to Phidias' carving
(both she and Zeus at Olympia left people marveling)
Before the war
was the golden age
where sculptors, writers, and many a sage
put Athens at the apex of the world's intellectual stage;
Socrates questioned- but he also corrupted,
Plato idealized but democracy he distrusted,
Aristotle investigated with a thirst never satiated
and tutored the greatest, most delusional ruler of all.
Euripides wrote of man's many a flaw-
yet to Aeshylus it was the will of the gods who caused men to fall.
Aophocles had Oedipus and Antigone and the like
whereas Aristophanes showed us The Birds' sad plight.
Herodotus wrote his "Histories"
though thanks to exaggeration, accurate it may not be.
Thuycidides came behind
with a more scientific mind
to remember the speeches of Pericles
and the war of the Delians vs. the Peloponnese.
Myron loved human form
and through his discus thrower showed us what should be the norm
and then last was hippocrates
who found natural, not divine origins of disease.
Such were the thinkers, the writers, the sages
who, in a few years in athens, created works that have lasted the ages.
Philip of Macedonia
had a heart made of stone -yuh.
With masterful strategy
he brought union to all of Greece
but fell to his first wife's blow
(we're nearly positive, but will never quite know).
Alex the great was the awesomest ruler who lived
his mom was really violent- just wanted everything for her kid
he lived in delusions that his daddy was Zeus
and when it came to war he never allowed a truce.
Pharaoh of Egypt, King of Babylon, Persia, and Greece
the Gordian knot he cut through
but at Darius' end he cried (boohoo)
as only a king can kill a king
and D's assistants had done the thing.
He may have been crazy
and that you can well-see
when he'd charge to cause a fright
before other armies (like the Persians at the Granicus) could build up might.
A philosopher, too,
was this man everyone knew.
Intellect he craved
to be learned, taught, shared, and saved.
His library and lighthouse were marvels of form
and Macedionian dress he ditched and chose Persian as the norm.
He did love his alcohol
though it may have been his one downfall
causing first destruction of Persep.
and later maybe his death.
After Greece came Rome
and Romulus with his heart of stone
who in 753
brought on the building of the 7-hill city
Latins met their end
at the hands of the Etruscans
who brought forth a monarchy
that was short lived, as you can see
when after 509
Republic became the government of the time.
And slowly but surely this nation did grow
into an empire all the world would come to know.
They built The Forum and Agora,
took on the Greek style amphora,
and many other aspects of Greek life they did, too
gods, art, sculptures, and architecture (the Greeks just seemed to know what to do)
and that's all ifeel like writing
cause my teacher looks like she's going to be smiting
me any minute
if I don't stop typing and get with it.
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
PROOF.
Well if this isn't proof enough that I'm actually crazy then I dunno what is.....I know there's been a lot of talk about venting and i must seem like a hypocritical, irrational person. I swear I'm not. at least not all the time.
I was gonna vent a few days ago and again today
but lately I've realized how blessed I am.
It's a lot happier to think about than all the things I want o vent about (much less overwhelming, too)
I think we forget sometimes to just stop and smell the roses because we get too caught up in all the thorns.
But if you think about it, the rose is much brighter and makes the thorn hurt a whole lot less because you can get caught up in the beauty and the good smell.
And what's so bad about that? I wouldn't be complaining (till I found all the scratches later:) even then, they wouldn't seem half so bad- actually they'd seem pretty damn hardcore and awesome.)
What's responsible for this massive mood-shift?
a choice.
I made a choice to let go of all my frustrations and venting and self-absorbedness when I feel it creeping into my mind
Because that, son, is from the devil
and I don't want him controlling any part of my mind.
it's crazy how powerful the mind is in controlling your emotions, actions, etcc
I know that's probably a bit of a redundant statement because the ole thinker does completely control every process
but by mind I mean mental attitude- mental predisposition- at the moment of your actions/thoughts/processes/etc
2 examples:
1. In my cross country meet Saturday, I completely mentally defeated myself. And it was so absolutely selfish of me because my team needs me- they need the confidence in me, to believe in me, to have that security that I won't drop out in our upcoming championship races and that I'll run to my full potential, which is as the number 2 runner on the team. But what did I do? I let my mind talk myself out of race zone and talk myself out of my pacing- I literally talked my body into shutting down. I KNOW I'm stronger than that- but I didn't run like it on saturday. All because I let my mind defeat my body- I let my doubts, my insecurities, my frustrations, my negativity- beat me down and win.
2. Yesterday in Pickleball. For starters, may I just say that I am not exactly the most gifted in hand-eye coordination. And in anything but running I admit I just get spastic. It's a problem- but funny (at least to people watching). But so anyway, yesterday I'd been playing poorly and being competitive, I was getting seriously frustrated and basically wanted to give up on myself. Instead, I thought for a half second maybe I should just focus on trying to play better instead of getting frustrated- and it worked! literally the dark cloud that was covering my mind with frustration and annoyance at the world just vanished and I started not only playing better (marginally) but I was a lot happier about it- and that carried over into my long run and into my evening with my family.
Basically, each day we have a choice. We can choose to drown in our sorrows and frustrations and despair or we can choose to rejoice in the good things going on or at least try to find them and remove ourselves from our ruts. Because we're mental beings and a little mind power goes a long way.
I was gonna vent a few days ago and again today
but lately I've realized how blessed I am.
It's a lot happier to think about than all the things I want o vent about (much less overwhelming, too)
I think we forget sometimes to just stop and smell the roses because we get too caught up in all the thorns.
But if you think about it, the rose is much brighter and makes the thorn hurt a whole lot less because you can get caught up in the beauty and the good smell.
And what's so bad about that? I wouldn't be complaining (till I found all the scratches later:) even then, they wouldn't seem half so bad- actually they'd seem pretty damn hardcore and awesome.)
What's responsible for this massive mood-shift?
a choice.
I made a choice to let go of all my frustrations and venting and self-absorbedness when I feel it creeping into my mind
Because that, son, is from the devil
and I don't want him controlling any part of my mind.
it's crazy how powerful the mind is in controlling your emotions, actions, etcc
I know that's probably a bit of a redundant statement because the ole thinker does completely control every process
but by mind I mean mental attitude- mental predisposition- at the moment of your actions/thoughts/processes/etc
2 examples:
1. In my cross country meet Saturday, I completely mentally defeated myself. And it was so absolutely selfish of me because my team needs me- they need the confidence in me, to believe in me, to have that security that I won't drop out in our upcoming championship races and that I'll run to my full potential, which is as the number 2 runner on the team. But what did I do? I let my mind talk myself out of race zone and talk myself out of my pacing- I literally talked my body into shutting down. I KNOW I'm stronger than that- but I didn't run like it on saturday. All because I let my mind defeat my body- I let my doubts, my insecurities, my frustrations, my negativity- beat me down and win.
2. Yesterday in Pickleball. For starters, may I just say that I am not exactly the most gifted in hand-eye coordination. And in anything but running I admit I just get spastic. It's a problem- but funny (at least to people watching). But so anyway, yesterday I'd been playing poorly and being competitive, I was getting seriously frustrated and basically wanted to give up on myself. Instead, I thought for a half second maybe I should just focus on trying to play better instead of getting frustrated- and it worked! literally the dark cloud that was covering my mind with frustration and annoyance at the world just vanished and I started not only playing better (marginally) but I was a lot happier about it- and that carried over into my long run and into my evening with my family.
Basically, each day we have a choice. We can choose to drown in our sorrows and frustrations and despair or we can choose to rejoice in the good things going on or at least try to find them and remove ourselves from our ruts. Because we're mental beings and a little mind power goes a long way.
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