Night before last I just couldn't sleep...kept waking up every hour on the hour...between an odd stressy-ache in my lower abdomen and nightmares from which I awoke feeling choked...yes sounds a bit bizarre I know...but the combination of these two things translated into not being able to sleep for more than an hour at a stretch. In other words, I was sleepy, aching, and miserable. So I didn't quite face the morning all sunshine-y and pleasant.
On any other day, I would've dragged my butt and gotten some work done. Actually very little work done. More like spent my time whining and stressing about work I should be doing but couldn't get myself to.
However, since I've been disciplined as of late, particularly the two days prior to the Night Of Crappiness, I decided early enough in the morning that I just needed to walk away from The Dissertation and All The Madness. And so I did. Spent the day catching and/or meeting up with people I've been meaning to without considering this whole "day off" deal a guilty pleasure. Those dissertating help sites call it a "mental health day". I sort of like the sound of that but I think I needed more than mental reprieve here...my body just didn't want to sit down and work either. I wouldn't call it playing hookey or a guilty pleasure because that suggests that I should've been working and I really think I should not have been. So po-tay-to, po-tah-to; a rose by any other name...blah blah blah. Whatever it was, it was much needed and I recommend it highly.
To quote Martha Stewart, "it's a good thing". Hmm, actually it's a great thing.
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Two friends that met in Karachi, Pakistan when we were in our 20s. Now we're in our 30s and even better friends even though we've never been in the same space at the same time for more than a month! Equally mad, equally sane....the numero uno trait that binds us as friends is our die-hard optimism. And so we continue to live by the maxim that one just has to deal with 'it'! Welcome to our blog - a space that explores the "In-Progress" us and everything we're passionate about.
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2 comments:
guilt is a waste of time IMHO, on par with the other meaningless emotions millenia of conditioning has hard-wired into our conciousness. When I recently took a month off to prepare for a particularly tough exam, I studied when I felt like studying and not when I had to. There were days I clocked 14hours+, and also those I didn't even bother getting out of bed. There were nights when I partied, when I invited company back to my place, and also entire weekends where I didn't interface with another live human.
Hence BW, I'm glad you're glad you unplugged when you did. It makes a world of difference. We can only do what we can, even when we're doing what we have to. And we do our best when we feel good about ourselves - altho, judicious use of devil's water can achieve roughly the same result... the trick is knowing when to stop. Kinda like remorse... too much will deaden the soul.
Thanks for checking in Saad D. Obviously, based on my post, I couldn't agree with you more. Guilt, as I age [hopefully gracefull], I have come to the conclusion is meaningless unless you really have committed an act so heinous that the consequences can't be managed or that you can't undo [okay not really undo so much as make up for] in some respects. The last sentence of your comment plus the last half of the first paragraph got me thinking about balance. Excess anything will deaden the soul for sure.
But perhaps sometimes we tend to think of balance in ways that don't work for us and are even counter-productive. For example, how you describe your last month sounds very balanced ...perhaps not on a day-to-day basis but overall it sure does. Seems like you sought out emotional, intellectual, physical stimulation over the long haul even if you threw yourself into one thing for week-ends at a stretch. [Btw, the "didn't interface with another live human" bit sounds like the last two weeks of my first year PhDing.]
Hope the exam went well and that you're doing well in all sorts of ways?
PS: I'm glad I unplugged too :-)!
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