There is no worst bully than the one we create in our head, and this time, it got the better of me. When I say I am my own harshest critic, I mean that I nail myself to the wall in my head and ask myself. Whats stopping you?.
These two/three weeks have been bad. I was consistently low, covid happened, reasonably recovered, but the aftermath was much worse. I went to work quickly, and then I went low again, physically and mentally. On Tuesday, I felt drained, so I returned home from work and slept only to get up and run 4.5 miles at an 8 min mile pace because I felt great. This was a total setback because I wasn’t letting my body recover or heal. I was pushing my limits to the brink of breaking myself. Having these bursts of energy feels excellent, and I’ve recovered, but the human body is not a computer or robot at the end of the day. Push it too hard, and it will also malfunction.
I’ve realized that this life/path can take a toll if I constantly keep pushing. I am also human and should probably take it easy. I also need to accept that I’ve brought it upon myself – nobody wanted, expected, or put a gun to my head to train for the Astronaut Candidacy Program @ NASA. It was all my doing. But at the same time, I rarely count my wins and only focus on my failures.
The other day, I talked with my mom, and she reminded me of an incident when I had just finished 10th grade. She took me to a counselor, and he told her that I wasn’t mentally normal, that there was something wrong with me, and I would have a lot of problems growing up. He wasn’t wrong about the last part but was wrong about everything else. Different does not mean disposable. I received that quote in a band I donate money to every year.
If I could go back and tell myself what I would be doing ten years down the line, I would laugh at myself.
But yeah, you become your own worst enemy and friend when you’re your own worst critic. And that is not a good thing all the time. Because when you fall off the norm or your routine wagon, you will beat yourself to death mentally and not give yourself enough healing time. Mentally, the covid virus was cured within two days of my body, but internally, I still wasn’t ready, pushing too hard. There will always be a war between us; the question is, who wins?
I have signed up for an EMT course starting in June (Which I had planned for this year), and also I might end up doing one more surgery around that period (hopefully). All my investments are still beaten to a pulp, and am still strapped for cash. Anyway, things could be worse. Always forward, never back.
I still think wanting a normal life wouldn’t be bad, but too late for that now. I’m already in my own sunk cost fallacy. But at the end of the day, “It’s a hard path and one very less traveled by individuals.” I don’t know what that would be like, though, buying a house, getting a car, a backyard, a few dogs running around? Etc. Hard to contemplate anything right now. This path – you see things, you do things, people look up to you, you create an unrealistic version of yourself in your head that you cannot fail, and you will. That’s the worst part. You will FAIL. You will lose many battles and can never win all of them.
A part of me wants to tell me to turn around, run away from everything, and live a “normal” life. And then there’s the other part that constantly reminds me of “Why we started in the first place.” Because it was never about me, it was for everyone else. The part that reminds me of what’s at stake here and encourages me to push more.