You might have already heard me mention this, but the year of 2008 pretty much sucked for me. Besides the graduating from college, moving to New York and losing weight due to a revamped lifestyle and basically new attitude about health, 2008 blew the big one. And since I've moved to the city, I have been sick around 6-7 times. I credit this to many different reasons, but mostly to how much I refuse to relax; I never stop my mind or body or constant going, and as a result, I overwork myself and quite frequently find myself in a mess of STRESS.
Normally I don't make New Year's Resolutions and I do think they are bullshit, but this is more of a life affirmation thing. I am making one simple resolution this year that will affect all aspects of my life and quite frankly, it is important to do this due to my frequent health issues lately. My 2009 "resolution" is simply
TO RELAX.Let us Wikipedia "Type A Personality", shall we?
Type A individuals can be described as impatient, excessively time-conscious, insecure about their status, highly competitive, hostile and aggressive, and incapable of relaxation. They are often high achieving workaholics who multi-task, drive themselves with deadlines, and are unhappy about the smallest of delays. Because of these characteristics, Type A individuals are often described as "stress junkies.And also:
Type A personality is characterized by an exaggerated sense of time urgency, competitiveness, anger and hostility. People who share certain characteristics with you are often concerned with the acquisition of objects and generally dissatisfied with the world, including oneself. You don't know how and when to relax. People probably get tense around you, and they tend to feel threatened in your presence. Continuous stress and allowing unexpressed feelings to pile up are not good for your health.Sound familiar? Yes, my friends, I've reached a point in my life where my personality is literally now affecting my health and my general well-being. God. Damnit. Still, I am never afraid of a challenge and this sounds like a positive and fun challenge in any case. Soooo . . . two words basically embody my entire, complex New Year's resolution and I am serious when I say I am taking it to heart. Every day now will have one hour of decompress time
at least. While it may , seem amusing to you lazy I mean Type B types, I actually have to schedule time-outs for myself to relax. I even think I am going to invest in Netflix literally because I know 90 minutes of a captivating film will force me to relax without even knowing it is happening. This is also important to work on now because of the high blood pressure that runs in my family, and if I start these positive habits now, I won't have to worry about them as much in the elderly future. So I haven't started working out all the details, or signed up for the yoga, but the first thing I've been working on is revamping my attitude, for starters. Because therein lies the main problem, maties. See below:
This might seem crazy, but I feel like I have already learned some new valuable lessons in the week that I have have been 23. A few experiences are finally reinforcing things that I have learned and hopefully will result in creating new habits to stick with in my adult life.
Last week, I learned
Never let them see you sweat.Although I've constantly been told told this one by my stepfather, including just a few weeks ago, I didn't really take it to heart until recently. I learned that just because I went out of my way to be a civil, friendly human being does not in fact mean that anyone is required to return me the favor . . . and many times, they won't. But next time I will learn to not go out of my way when I know the favors most likely will not be returned. And this ties into 'never let them see you sweat' because the more I react, the more weak I look. Besides the fact that I'm fabulous, it's important to me to always appear 100% confident, even if I am shaking in my boots. While that is something I worked to overcome in acting, it's something I now need to bring to my own life to ensure a sense of stability and confidence in daily life.
This week, I learned
Do everything you can to improve yourself and your surrounding environment and forget the things you cannot control.
Often it is very difficult for me to speak my mind in a polite, constructive way. I took it upon myself to be the bigger person and express opinions in the most respectful way I've been taught - as if I were still in junior high and I was addressing my parents - and I found out that no matter how much you improve your game, there are still going to be factors that you cannot control. I cannot control someone responding to my mature actions in a completely immature or disrespectful manner. If I spend this year worrying about things out of my control like I always find myself doing, I will most likely waste 6 months out of the year. A quarter of my life is almost already gone, and I just do not have the time anymore to worry that much. Easier said than done, but at least now I can mentally classify my problems as 'things in my control' and 'things that are not' and promptly attempt to dismiss the latter.
This week, I also put a familiar lesson into action with my authority figures:
Always stand up for what you believe in and prove it by verbally putting your foot down.I usually do not have this problem in social or family situations, but over the years I found that sometimes I do have this problem in my professional life. It is not easy to instruct your boss to not take advantage of you or to tell an elder, "Listen buddy, you can either take it or leave it." But again, my life is too short to waste time pretending I am someone else and that I am completely comfortable with taking your shit. Lesson: LEARNED.
I think this has been a gradual thing, but 2008 definitely taught me
Surround yourself only with the people that enjoy your company as much as you enjoy theirs.I thought I had weeded out a lot of the toxic people in my life, but of course I was WRONG. 2009 is going to bring a sort of 'spring cleaning'
if you will of all the people that I don't need around me anymore. I should also clean out my cell phone . . . I really don't need more than 25 people in my phone book for now. And that cleansing needs to go hand-in-hand with less verbal vomit. And by that I mean: I need to completely dissolve these people from my life WITHOUT talking about them (negative or positive comments) and not even thinking about their existence. That will also help me to free some stress from my overworked mind.
I recently bought myself a couple mini Moleskin notebooks, in hopes that I might fill them with various musings, lists and goals.
This year I hope most to find
focus.and that is all for now, my friends.
Happy New Year to you all . . .
Love, me
