I’m Taking A (Brief) Break

See you all in a month or two

This past month has been a pretty wild one.  Not only was it a very busy time at work, but I also did a lot of traveling (scheduled many months ago) to visit family and friends.  The travel part would have been easy and welcomed, but because of the aforementioned busy time at work, I was unable to take any PTO for these trips (I can’t get into specifics, but the end of the summer is extremely important for my company and we’re not permitted to take any time off).  This forced me to get creative with my travel plans and led to me doing really inadvisable stuff like taking cross country red eyes in the middle of the week and spending an entire day working from an airport terminal so I could be online and answering emails.

Of course, while I was spending all of this time working and traveling, I wasn’t exercising or eating healthy. I was simply riding the dopamine wave from one indulgent meal or snack to another, hoping it would keep me going through the rest of the day to accomplish whatever it was I needed to accomplish.  There was no thinking or planning ahead, I was just surviving moment to moment.

I also wasn’t writing during this time.  I typically like to stay about 2-3 weeks ahead on posts, that way if a week gets too jammed up I still have a backlog I can lean on and not miss a Tuesday deadline.  But I became so overwhelmed during this past month that I burned through my entire reserve of posts without generating any new ones.

Everything caught up with me last week. I felt extremely tired, unhealthy, unfit, and discombobulated. Worst of all, I didn’t have anything written for today’s blog entry. That last part really stressed me out. I wondered how I could get back on track physically while regaining my writing momentum at the same time.  But amidst all of this stress came a very clear and simple thought.

What if I didn’t write anything this week?  Beyond that, what if I didn’t write anything for a few weeks or more?

Recently, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the phrase “First things first.”  What, if I had to name them, are my “First Things?”  I don’t mean in terms of my responsibilities to others (My wife, my job, my dog).  I don’t really get to choose those.  I mean, what do I have to do or take care of first in order to be the best version of myself? What am I able to control that helps me fulfill my responsibilities in the most effective way possible? Walking out of the gym last week, feeling better than I had in weeks, it hit me.  My physical fitness and well-being are my First Things.

I haven’t always made them my First Things.  There are times where I’ve prioritized writing or work or some other personal obligation over eating healthy and exercising. I did what I had to do.  But there’s a trade off whenever I take this route.  I end up feeling depleted and worn down, pulling from a diminishing reserve of energy as time goes on. Conversely, any time I’ve made health and fitness a priority, I have both the physical energy and mental clarity to accomplish my tasks with gusto.  Not only do I feel better physically and mentally, I feel better spiritually and philosophically as well.  I’m just more positive and optimistic about life whenever I work out. I know for a fact that mindset impacts my writing.

I once read somewhere that “Philosophy begins in the body.”  I didn’t quite get it at the time, but now I think I do.  Exercise and healthy eating aren’t just about your cholesterol or your BMI or your vanity.  They’re not even about your anxiety or your depression.  They’re about your overall outlook and sense of agency, and that informs everything else.  It’s a spiritual endeavor.

I say all this to say that after a month plus of treating my body terribly, thereby making everything else in my life more difficult and less effective, I’m going to spend the next month or two focused on First Things.  I’m going to get back on track with a diet and exercise routine, I’m going to prioritize sleep, and I’m also going to remove the latent stress that comes with the weekly posting deadline that I’ve set for myself.

I had some misgivings about this initially.  I started this blog in March and haven’t missed a week yet.  Why start now?  But then I looked at it from the opposite perspective.  This post is my 28th in a row.  I haven’t missed a Tuesday deadline since March.  Haven’t I earned the leeway to take some time off and rejuvenate myself in a moment of depletion?  I certainly feel like I have. Plus, continuing to write at this pace feels like it’s approaching a point of diminishing returns. My ideas are slowing down, and I’m not able to penetrate into them as deeply when I do write.

Right now, I’m more interested in being my best self, both as a writer and as a person, as opposed to being a consistent poster.  I’ll take the next 6-8 weeks to reset, reframe, renew, and come back with a clarity of perspective that I can then apply to my writing and to my life at large.  I think it’ll benefit me more in the long run than posting every week would.

See you soon.