4 MONTH HIATUS

"What day of the week is it? What month is it? Is Obama still the president!?" Are the common questions I ask myself as I slowly lose track of time and foremost, my sanity. (I am happy to say he is still the president, although I am in Canada and should be more concerned with my own country's affairs).

Looking back at my previous blog posts, I chuckle to myself at how much I complained at being NOT busy. "Oh naive child, just wait until January. That's when shit really hits the fan." Is what I would say to myself if I had multiple personality complex with an annoying tendency to talk in third person. But that's another story.

Starting mid January, I started my new year's resolution of saying "YES" to things that scared me. And I think I took my my advice a little too liberally, because well...everything scares me. So on top of adding more hours to my part-time tutoring job, I also added to my plate a new job as a daycare teacher, a new ESL additional qualification course, a volunteer position as an outreach coordinator, a new opportunity as a workshop leader, and becoming a birthday party team member.* Basically, my work week escalated from a mere 11 hour week to a whopping 40-50 hour week. And what I use to consider stressful, became things that I actually looked forward to. That's right, my new added stressors made my actually appreciate what I had before, like my part-time job. Who knew?

I use to pray for a greater power to bestow me with new opportunities to keep myself busy, to give myself some sort of identity. And for the past 4 months, I have both loved and struggled with this new profound lifestyle. I found myself neglecting my health, squeezing in a social life I knew was affecting my energy, and pushing away any "me" time I had (unless taking afternoon naps or binge watching anime counts). Now don't get me wrong. I am extremely proud of myself, and my bank has seen digits that have never graced my TD app screen since I started my account. But if it be any lesson to anyone else out there, the only reason why I have time to write this blog post is because I have a 3 day doctor's order note saying I need to stay in bed because of a virus infection. Yup, my body finally shut me down (literally) and told me to stop working so damn hard.

I'm currently saving up for Europe, so I'm not sure how many hours I can afford to sacrifice, but I know that sacrificing my health and happiness is not worth it. I recently read from an acquaintance, that in this day and age, we usually tend to value multi-tasking but it is single-tasking that we must learn to master. Basically, the more we spread ourselves thin the less effort we can invest into those opportunities that are important. Successful people have to say no to things that don't further their growth. There will always be new pathways for one to forge. As a result, I realize I need to take a step back from what I have been doing and reevaluate if my current schedule is making me stronger or sucking me dry. Basically, I have experienced both extremes, one being time-consumed and one being work-consumed, and now I crave and need a balance of both worlds. So thank you sucky immune system, I got your message loud and clear.

All in all, blogging was a much needed therapy to bring me back to my roots, reflect on some previous posts, and crash me back down to Earth. I can't wait to take tomorrow off and start the week off with a healthy dose of me time, xo

*If you are wondering what this means, my coworker explains sums it up pretty nicely. "You know those movies where there are kids going crazy at a birthday party with like cake all over their face? And then you have those poor employees rocking in the corner or trying to pick up teeny weeny bits of confetti everywhere? Yup, that's what I do."