Of late, I’ve been feeling under increasing amounts of pressure. The stupid thing is, most of it is coming directly from one person. Me.
I’m a busy person, and I recognise that I’m at my happiest when I’m busy with a task. Bored Alex is an unhappy Alex, and that’s no good at all for my mental health.
That being said, of late, I suspect that I’m tilting a little too hard in the other direction, putting more pressure on myself than is truly healthy.
I’ve got a full-time, very busy job to attend to.
Three kids and a house to run.
Another technology website to run in whatever form it’s evolving into. At the moment it’s at its bloggiest, but that may change.
A podcast to co-run, market and edit every week.
A 52-week retro gaming challenge that’s meant to justify my overly large collection of games.
I’m trying (and failing) to learn Japanese.
There’s a guitar sitting in the corner of one room in my house, and I’m not really learning that either, and the amount of money spent on it means I really should be.
I don’t socialise anywhere near as much as I should, which means I have reams of people who I should probably reclassify as “associates”. I believe friends are people you actually see, you know? So, you know, apologies to all the people I haven’t seen for the longest time. Pressure.
In amongst all of that I’m not sleeping much, and my health is suffering.
So something has to change.
I just have to work out what that’s going to be. Clearly, I’ve got to drop a few things and take more time to simply breathe. Actually, with the annoying chest/head cold I’ve had the past few weeks, simply being able to breathe at all naturally would be a big plus.
So why write this out? I guess it’s how I clarify things in my head, writing them down and publishing them. Well worn neural (or possibly neurotic) patterns, and all that.
What it probably means is that I’ll dial back some of my non-work related writing for a bit, and maybe work out this whole “relaxing” thing, if I have time.
Because naturally, trying to reduce the pressure I’m putting on myself is adding a whole heaping helping of all-new pressure…