Slipping Away

 Do you ever feel like no matter how much you try, things just keep on slipping away? Be it college studies, work deadlines, career planning, or even maintaining friendships, all of it kind of fades away on some days, and even though you feel it happening you don't have enough stamina to actually work towards it. 

As it seems, this happens with all of us when we have a lot to do and many things to figure out. This might make you feel overwhelmed, anxious and blue but that is okay. Take it as a reminder to pause for a while and take a deep breath. I know you've got a lot of things to do but take some time out for yourself during this time. We are already doing enough, to survive this pandemic. Give yourself the credit for that. I know it's not easy because I know how it feels when you try to take some time off but there's a constant nagging of those numerous piled-up tasks, inside your head. 

We are generous and want to be there for our friends whenever they need us but should we try to solve their problems even when we don't feel okay? Let me present two scenarios, to show how this could work. In the first scenario, you don't deal with their problems. You instead spend that time, which you were ready to devote to their problems, on doing something for yourself, something that brings you pleasure and content. I'm not asking you to abandon them with their problems, so you can keep reading. Once you are rejuvenated, you can go ahead and help your friends. Here, even though there could be a delay both of you will eventually be satisfied and happy. On the contrary to this, in the second scenario, you go ahead and help your friends and make them happy first. You keep doing this because you feel that it is your responsibility to make your friends feel alright, till ultimately you can't take it anymore. Now, you either dive into this dark place where you just don't feel like doing anything for anyone or there's an outburst of all those stacked-up emotions. 

In either of the above two scenarios, you have accomplished comforting your friend but can we say that for you? While in the first case, you have given time to yourself and made yourself happy, in the second case, you kept on accumulating your feelings and emotions until you couldn't take it anymore and at the end of it all, you weren't even able to fulfill your own needs. I know that sometimes it's hard to keep yourself first when a close one is in need but helping them may not be the best resort every time. You have to be there for yourself before you be there for others. Consider yourself as a bottle, full of water and the others around you as glasses. You must keep refilling the bottle to pour that water into the glasses because an empty bottle can never fill those glasses. So, take some time to please yourself, every once in a while.