Here is my full confession: I do NOT know how to relax.In high school, I took all honors classes, worked a part-time job and got involved in numerous clubs and activities. In college I took a full load of classes, worked at the university's writing center and held various leadership positions in my co-ed fraternity. Post college, I worked 80 hour weeks in a restaurant while using my one day off a week to pump out job applications and do laundry. Then I worked a Monday-Friday job while working nights and weekends in a restaurant.
Currently I work full time and go to graduate school at night. My weekends are for errands, working out, going to yoga and doing homework. I am constantly making lists in my head of things I need to pick up, errands to run, papers to write, emails to send and people to call. I multi-task like crazy--commuting is for listening to podcasts while reading the newspaper and the eliptical is also for getting homework done. Baths are for soothing sore muscles, but they are also for list-making and magazine reading. I am contemplating working full time, taking a graduate course and doing the 200 hour yoga teacher training in the Spring. I feel like I never stop.
I am taking a vacation in two weeks and I already have lists of things I want to see, do and accomplish during that time. Unplanned time makes me skittish. I think that is partially because I am afraid I am wasting it and partially because I have no idea what to do. So my question to you all is....How do you learn to relax? I'm afraid of what will become of me after I graduate next May and all I have is my full time job.
2 comments:
I had several years like that, and then I hit a wall after going to law school fulltime and working up to 35 hours a week and taking the bar - mu first year out of law school nothing much changed, but my second year out of law school, I actually craved relaxation time. So that means it took all of high school, college, and then eight years before I was like "I need to relax" - I still suck at it, though, LOL :)
Oh sweets! Just reading your blog entry made my head dizzy. I think I used to be like that too in that i could never sit still. I always had to be doing something and usually multiple things. My friends in law school made fun of me because i couldn't just sit down and watch TV, i had to also be on the computer and flipping through a magazine.
I don't know what happened, but after first year of law school, I too hit a wall and started to crave solitude and serenity, aka doing a whole lot of nothing. I think it's important to schedule in "nothing" time. Start small, like trying to just take a bath. It can be hard to be alone with our thoughts, but oftentimes great things come of it.
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