I don’t have much by way of resolutions this year. I honestly feel that I already have everything I could ever want.
I have beautiful, perfect children. I have a loving wife. I have an extended family that supports one another. I have a job that allows me to contribute to the growth and evolution of my community.
Beyond that I’m in good health. I have friends, quite a few of them actually, although I don’t make time to connect nearly as much as I should. Same goes with my hobbies. I write, I strum my guitar and sing, I cook. Not as often as I once did, or as often as I’d like to, but I keep telling myself someday I’ll be able to put more time and energy into my wonderful hobbies.
There’s a problem though, and it’s not a small one. I often feel too stressed and exhausted to actually enjoy myself and the amazing gifts I’ve been blessed with. Instead I feel unsettled, uneasy, dissatisfied or just plain off.
And yet when I stop to think about it, like I’m doing now as I contemplate the New Year, my mind tells me I have everything I want. How can I square this with how I’m feeling? What my mind is saying and what I’m feeling in my body are completely different. My mind says I’ve got all I could ever want and should therefore be satisfied, but I’m not. I’m feeling dissatisfied instead, literally the opposite of what my mind thinks I should be feeling.
This is all new by the way. Up until recently there were always things I wanted. I wanted a meaningful relationship, I wanted kids, I wanted to have the courage to perform live music as a solo act. I wanted a better job with higher pay and more meaningful work.
Guess what? I have all of that now. And when I take time to consider this fact I feel fortunate, unbelievably fortunate. I also feel proud of myself for making it happen, for sticking with it, for struggling until I succeeded. So why do I feel too stressed and exhausted to enjoy all of these riches in my life?
I think it’s pretty simple actually. I’m super tired and stressed right now from years of pushing really hard, too hard. This is called burnout and it’s a real thing.
I’ve already cut back quite a bit on certain responsibilities over the past year in an attempt to find a better balance. Now I work a normal work week instead of the long hours I always used to put in. I say no a lot more too when it comes to social events and get togethers, which gives me more time to myself.
But therein lies a tricky issue, because when I take time to myself now to try to relax, all the stress and exhaustion tends to overtake my insides and dominate my feelings. So I’ll be sitting there doing nothing, doing my best to unwind, and I’ll feel pretty terrible. I want to relax but when I do the stress takes up all the empty space and I end up feeling overwhelmed instead of refreshed. This is also new. Up until recently if I had free time I’d usually get juiced up thinking about the wonderful things I wanted to do in the world, and there was so much I wanted to do. I wanted to find adventure with my favorite people. I wanted to play beautiful music. I wanted to develop innovative business strategies. If I gave myself time and space what would generally happen is that I’d get excited about living, about doing things that would make me happy or fulfilled, or that would bring some beauty and joy to the world.
This doesn’t happen nearly as much anymore and I struggle with it. I want to be more excited. I also want to be more me, or what I came to expect of being me for the substantial majority of my life.
I assume there are several reasons for my lack of excitement about my free time, but I’m honestly not sure. One obvious reason is that I don’t have much free time anymore. My days are typically planned out from morning until night and it’s all work and family for the most part. I love spending time with my family by the way. It’s my favorite thing in the world by a long shot. But I’ve come to realize that I need time for myself too. It’s not just that I want it, but I in fact need it. If not then I’m out of balance after a while, I’m out of sorts. And even more importantly my relationships start to stray out of balance if they don’t allow enough time for me to do what I need to do on my own.
I also have too full of a life, meaning I have too much of everything, including what I want.
My work for example is very meaningful. It’s also extremely hard and complex and it dominates too much of my life, including my off hours. I take too much stress home and that prevents me at times from being present with my kids. I know I’m ultimately responsible for this, but I haven’t figured it out yet. I have, however, come to the clear realization that my work stress takes over too often, and this needs to change. I need to dial down the intensity of my work, either by working less, or by working in a more sane way. And I need to approach other areas of my life similarly.
I don’t want more in my life. I want less so that I can focus more on what I already have.
I don’t want new things. I want the time and energy to be able to bring a clear mind and an open heart to the life I’m already leading.
This means a return to basics to some extent. Good rest, good food, good exercise. Good work-life balance.
It also means becoming much more protective of my time. Time is literally our most valuable resource, and I’m going to stop giving mine away so freely. This means cutting things out and doing less in some areas of my life so that I can either relax more, or put more time into things that fill me up.
It’s definitely not as simple as just changing my mindset or adjusting my attitude. When my life is too busy or too complex, I need to simplify first, to reset. This creates the conditions for my mindset to shift. You can’t do one without the other. It just doesn’t work that way.
There’s also a straw that breaks the camel’s back element to all of this. I feel like I’m a camel running around carrying a huge pile of straw. It’s gigantic really because camels are strong and each piece of straw is so light. I’ve been going like this for a long time, which is kind of cool I guess because in this case carrying a lot on my back implies that I’m helping myself and others by taking on this load, by doing the work of carrying it and transporting it. But as I’ve taken on more and more I’m now at a point where I’m at my limit. It’ll only take one more piece of straw at this point to break my back. But even if an extra piece isn’t put on then I’m still carrying a load that’s almost breaking me. And so many other things can happen to cause disaster. If I get sick then the load will be too much because I won’t have the strength to carry the same amount I was able to handle when I was healthy. If the road I’m walking down starts winding up a mountain then the load will be too heavy for an uphill climb. When I’m at the limit, I don’t have the tolerance to handle any new stressors because my strength has been tapped out.
When you stay at the limit long enough it wears you down. It burns you out. Not permanently, but not in a short-term way either where you can just decide to focus on the positive. You need to rest and recover to get back to full strength. But you also need to lighten the load you’re carrying around so that you’re not always susceptible to breaking your back.
This is what I really want in 2024. I want to carry no more than a reasonable load so that I have all the energy I need to love the wonderful people in my life and be loved by them. I also want to be much more protective of this load and super vigilant about ensuring I don’t take on too much.
Because like I said, I have everything I want. But I also have way too much stress, and that’s clouding my feelings and bringing me down.
I can figure this out. This is the year I’m going to take charge and make it happen!