- Go over toward the deep end and fling yourself into the pool, instantly getting wet and experiencing an excruciating moment of freezing cold.
- Start at the shallowest part and ease your way into the pool, then walk slowly deeper, letting your body adjust slowly.
After college, I got hurt. Suddenly, I was losing energy. The things I had to do (graduate school, work) took up more energy than I had. I was losing concentration and mental capacity and memory. I couldn't trust myself to commit to a whole lot outside of what was necessary. I was treading water.
Now that I have my graduate degree, I have that time and some of that energy available. I'm using it for job hunting, writing, submitting writing for publication, conducting research, church involvement, alumni organizations, blogging, and other things.
To avoid overwhelming myself, I'm doing it in layers. I try one thing; once I get that into my schedule, I try adding something else. Eventually, I will run out of energy to spend, and then I will have to stop at that my level of involvement and maybe back off a bit. (In fact, I think this little bout of the flu may be telling me I've already reached my limit. Boo.)
However, there's one more layer I'm going to add: replying to comments on my blogs. Once I show that I can maintain this post-a-day (or a-week) pace without exhausting myself, my time, and my ideas too much, I'm going to start figuring out how to improve the blog designs and quickly respond to comments.
But first, more orange juice. And maybe some chicken soup. (Not because of health value, per se, but because liquid is good for sick singers.)
How did you get into the pool back in the day? How do you approach new situations now? (And how would you get into the pool now? :)
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I used to just jump right in. I still rip band-aids off quickly. But this summer I actually made it into a public pool, and went in very, very slowly, mostly (I tell myself) because of the 4-yr. old I was helping, but also because it was (insert expletive here) cold.
ReplyDeleteI recently spent nine months being pregnant, and three months after that with a 0-3 month old (oddly enough). Before that I could easily waste 3 hours of an afternoon building empires (via video games) or stay up until 4am reading, then carry on the next day, not much worse for the wear. Now I consider a good night's sleep a major achievement. If I manage to wash dishes or do laundry, it's a pretty good day. When I water my plants I am happy in myself. And when I get a page of my dissertation written, I feel like a successful person. It's all about perspective.