You know those people who are so busy that they have a full-time job, run a side business, have active social lives, manage a million other things yet still seem to have it all together? Yeah, well they either have a lot of help, they’re superheroes or they’re frauds.
It should come as no surprise that my last post was a long time ago. Beginning of April to be exact. And thinking about how long it’s been since I’ve managed to write up a simple blog post really bums me out. Blogging is something I really enjoy and I use it as a creative outlet from my day to day job and responsibilities. Not having the time or the motivation to write up a post is pretty much where I’ve been at the last few months and I think the reason why is something others can relate to.
It all comes down to the fact that I bit off more than I could chew. I took on too much. I said yes to too many things. And ultimately, something had to fall by the wayside. Unfortunately, since this blog isn’t my source of income nor will it give me my master’s degree, this is what had to fall on the back burner for a bit. It’s frustrating when the thing that brings you the most fulfillment doesn’t also provide a living for you, but that’s #adulting.
Long story short, the last few months I’ve been struggling to stay afloat. I work in marketing at an ad agency and summer is our busy season. My workload tripled from the winter months and I took on more responsibility in the day to day of our team. I would come home burnt out from looking at a screen all day and wanting to just lounge on the couch. But, grad school classes picked up again in May and I took on a 4 course load, so that wasn’t an option. In retrospect, 4 classes in one semester was too much to take on while working full time and I promise you that I learned my lesson. I finished up the semester maintaining my 3.7 GPA (humblebrag) but lost my sanity along the way, which was a tough price to pay. I wasn’t hanging out with friends because I truly didn’t have the energy. I was stressed beyond belief. I was going to bed at 1AM and waking up at 4AM unable to turn my mind off. I was literally losing my mind and my emotions were so hot and cold that it started to take a toll on my personal life.
I’m the kind of person that doesn’t like to ask for help. I’ll actually go out my way not to ask for it. I don’t like to admit fault or failure. In fact, I hate it. I realize everyone has problems, and this minor problem I had of being busy by choice was nothing compared to what others sometimes deal with. That being said, in the last few weeks I’ve come to realize that it is ok to ask for help and that’s what I did. I swallowed my pride and admitted to being overwhelmed and found that it wasn’t actually as painful as I thought it would be.
It’s almost like as soon as I opened up about my struggles, the universe conspired to lighten my load. Issues at work cleared up on their own, classes ended and I felt like I could finally breathe again. The stress I felt the last few months is nothing I want to feel again if I can avoid it and learning to ask for help when I need it is probably the first step.
To sum up it all up — I took on too much at once but ended up learning a lot about myself because of it. As much as I want to say yes to everything and do it all on my own, that’s not realistic. The people on social media who seem to have perfect lives and do it all without any mishaps haven’t actually mastered time management and getting stuff done, instead they’ve just mastered being able to make it look like they do. Life can get overwhelming sometimes and in the future, I plan to swallow my pride a little more and ask for help when I need it.