My friend who worked in the investment bank had a very hectic life. His regular 12-hour day started at 9 am and sometimes went until 11 pm. Long meetings always kept him busy, and he never took my calls during work hours. Even outside of work, he preferred to talk with overseas colleagues and clients than with his friends and family.
Although the pay was good, I never liked his working hours. However, one thing that made me envious was he loved his job. I recall he never complained about coming late. To my surprise, he used to enjoy eating and sleeping late.
In fact, this routine continued for years. And then one day he lost his temper, yelled at the milkman for not delivering the ordered packets. The next day, he screamed at the newspaperman for a petty reason. During dinner, he cursed his boss about tighter deadlines and his inability to understand work requirements.
I had to avoid eye contact and move my face to say it to myself, “What the hell is he doing?” Then I turned back and replied sternly, “TAKE A BREAK”.
Later, I told him that his boss was indirectly telling him to take a break. He was dumbfounded. He could not see the effects of a tired and burned-out mind.
He could not comprehend it. He exclaimed, “You never met my boss, how can you take his side?”
If you were at his place, you would think the same thing.
-----
A sluggish mind hinders your ability to think from a different perspective.
On a normal day, we only care about presentations, deadlines, meetings, business trips, and networking, and we have no time to think about other aspects of life. We never thought it was necessary.
We work to earn money. Even the exhausting work at the beginning of our career excites us. Seeing an organization grow from the efforts of insignificant people like us is thrilling and rewarding. Our small wins make us feel worthy, and we try to contribute to the maximum extent. Years pass, exciting projects end, and leave us making workaholics. But, we take pride in that feeling and in our ability to change the fortunes of the organization.
Slowly, our minds grow tired of the monotonous routine that was once so exciting. Without reflecting, we continue to work. We flow with this wave, floating on all the crests and troughs of work and life.
Accepting life as it is visible to us becomes destiny. We think that this is how we live in the world. Sleep, work, eat, sleep. The cycle continues until one day.
And we begin to see the effects of our depressed and exhausted lives. We vent out with everyone, in every place. We needed a break, but we could not see it, and we only see these 8 signs screaming at us to take a break, but we do not hear it:
1. We feel tired when we look at Instagram photos of friends; we do not like them, instead, we hide them or minimize the app thinking that one day we will also post such happy photos.
2. We get into an argument with shopkeepers, workers, colleagues, for petty reasons. We don’t reason out with them; we force our ideas on everyone.
3. Every morning we wake up thinking — let us start the same story again, and we have the Monday blues every morning of the week.
4. Our ability to value people diminishes day by day. We can appreciate no one in our lives. But we crave rewards.
5. We just can’t make that presentation which should take few hours, and we leave tasks at 90% even though there’s 10% left, but we leave them because we think it does not make a difference.
6. We do not even like praising someone for their efforts and think that they praise you to get an advantage for something else.
7. We see a decrease in libido or sex drive.
8. We get angry over little things and curse everyone from our child, our partner, our neighbor, the random person on the street, the prime minister, the president, and in the end, God.
During this time, we choose options that are easy to get without effort.
For example, stressed people consume unhealthy food without a second thought. Exercising is an impossible task. Negativity finds them from every direction. They go with the flow, thinking that eventually things will improve and they will balance their lives and live a stress-free life. They only hope but plan no action. But only hope, without action, slowly turn their happy life into a permanently depressed one.
Do not get upset if you see such signs in your life. One of these points could be normal. Look out for 2 or 3 points. Instead of getting sad about it, look at the consistency. Then change the environment, meditate, take a relaxing break that does not involve hectic travel.
Break your dependencies, lose your point of contact with your regular people and get out of range. Believe me, you will be more energized, more efficient, and more productive. You will start seeing all the things that have been bothering you in the past with a different perspective. Such a break at the right time can elevate your life, relationships, and work to a higher level.
In the end, to live a conscious life, you must never ignore such signs. Reflect on your life. If you can not find a way out of your problems, take a relaxing break, change your environment, come back with positive energy, and ROCK the world. TAKE ACTION.
-----
This post is a part of Blogchatter Half Marathon and Cause a chatter.