An Adjustment

I have extremely high expectations for myself in everything and it has always taken its toll on my emotions and spirit. Yesterday's post makes it pretty obvious that I feel like a failure at sometimes and it eats away at me - even if in reality I was very successful.

Over the last month (and last few months) I have had trial after trial, but while not every trial was a piece of cake, I got through them all and grew in obvious ways. during the largest and hardest trial of this period I acted mature beyond my years and beyond what most people are capable of. Countless people run from this situation - I stood my ground. Others belittle the situation and belittle the others in it - I gave my full support. Most make rash decisions based on emotion, I took the time to consult people with experience and took a lot of time to make the right decision on how to react. The situation itself was impossible to get out of unscratched, but the way I handled it was with the highest level of maturity, patience, and love. I should be very proud of myself - It seems that my personal development over the last few months has not been for naught and I have grown up a lot.

Another trial that I feel like a failure but did much better than I would have done before was when my landlord all of a sudden said "I want the apartment back, everyone get out." I was calm and composed. Instead of fighting a lost cause, I took this as an opportunity to find a better place that I would be more satisfied with. Even though I didn't have much time to find a new place and was working far too many hours at the time, I was patient and took my time. Even when time was up I did not make a rash decision, instead I moved into a hotel for the time being to give myself more time to get results that would satisfy me. In the end I found a great place that I am happy with, more so than I would have been had I taken a place on the first weekend in a rush. In the past I took the first place that looked livable without considering many options and without taking enough time to examine the situation. This time I did and it shows my growth even just over the last year.

This theme has rang true in everything that I've been doing, not just in certain tough situations. While life has thrown me a lot of curve balls recently, I batted a 100, not a 0. It felt good to cool off with a release post like that, and now that my head is clear I can see the real situation.

While I've grown up quite a bit it doesn't mean that my life is up to par - actually my life is very unstable and it has been for the last year. I've never really gotten myself into a stable living situation. Luckily I had enough money in the bank to deal with these last few crises, but I should have had more as I am in a foreign country and things like this can pop up at any time.

I want to create balance in my life, so I no longer am working until midnight or later but have no clean shirts to wear. I no longer want to be able to stand but can't sit up. In order to balance I have to have a point to balance on - let's call it my core life. My personal systems that are inner focused make up my core. These systems include my home environment, my health (which thus includes my exercise habits, eating habits, cleaning habits and my sleeping habits), my core relationships and my work. When one of these comes out of balance, the entire thing starts to fall apart. Last month I focused HEAVILY on my work, with all of the other parts of my life falling out of balance. Now my work has started to tip as I struggle to make up in other parts of my life.

This month I am going to work on my home and health systems. It is a new month so I have plenty of time and these two go very well together. In a new area I have to set up new habits anyway so I will set up good ones as I go along. Here is my life of things to get through for this month:

1) Settle down in my new apartment: Get Internet, get all basic necessities, buy all other things that make me feel at home (Speakers for instance), buy a bike, buy a work out mat for my living room, get the lights / locks fixed.

2) Get to know the surrounding area: Find the best restaurants, the 24 hour places, who sells snacks, who delivers until midnight, which places have coffee and Internet access, where can I go to print / fax / mail , which buses go where, how long does it take to walk/bike to the nearest malls and main areas, and where do I go to buy vegetables to cook.

3) Sign up for a nearby gym with a friend. Luckily a friend of mine wants to start going to the gym and wants to sign up with me. Before I was only playing soccer 1-2x a week, but I should be exercising at least 4x a week to stay healthy (I want everyday, but at least 6x).

4) Stop eating so many heavy meals and avoid grease: in the last month I have eaten more western food than I ever did in any other month and it's showing. Not only that but my favorite meals have always been the ones heavy on cheese and fried food.

5) Eat fruit: I don't eat fruit, period. I've never gotten into this habit and I don't know why, but I want to get into this habit ASAP. I'm going to replace my french fries with fruit bowls and my chips with apples - nothing huge like fixing up fruit dishes at home, just buying one thing to replace the other.

6) Wake up at 7am: I don't care what I do right now at 7, I just want to wake up at 7 so I don't have to rush out the door every morning when I wake up at 8. I have to leave at 8:15 for work everyday now, so if I wake up at 7 I have ample time for cleanliness and possibly time to read the news and take my time to get to work. This is also important for stress.

I think that's enough for this month - It's already quit a bit to change, but I'm sure I can do it. With a solid internal base, branching out to other activities and more fulfilling things will be easier, so will dealing with crises.

I'm actually going against what I had previously assumed was the only way to change - one thing at the time and slowly. I've found that if 90% of my life is the same I tend to revert back to the old 10% habits rather than the new. If 90% of my life is changed, I find it much easier to keep going. I guess it has to do with a problem in my psychology that I still have yet to fix - the "in the lead gain ground" "2nd place drop to last place", and "play to the level of the competition." I will want to change this psychology later, but for now I have to work within this framework to gain my balance back in life.

*phew* here I go