Getting better one day at a time
(See what I did there? Since my goal for the month was reading) All puns aside, I’m a bit disappointed with my progress in June. I only ended up completing two books, one of which was given to me by my mother. And just yesterday …
Sometimes it can be hard to know how to help a friend who is struggling so I thought I’d compile a short list simple ways my friends have helped me through. I’ve been lucky to find a really supportive group of friends so I’d like …
Last week I wrote about what depression feels like to me, so I wanted to also write about the other side of things. Because inevitably, I always come out of it and start to feel better and I want to have a record of that. So, get ready for a whole bunch of similes and metaphors because they help me conceptualize and process things better.
Sometimes, when I’m in a dark place, the way I describe it to myself is like I have a box or bucket over my head. It muffles all outside sound and makes me unable to see. It keeps all thoughts in my head suck there, boomeranging back and forth. Anything new from the outside just bounces right off. But when I come out of it, it’s like this bucket is removed and I can take in new ideas again and let harmful mantras and obsessive thoughts fade away.
Suddenly I have a hundred new ideas when the day before it felt like I couldn’t even absorb the words my friend was saying on the phone. It feels like I was in hibernation for months and Spring has finally arrived. I have tons of energy. I could sleep for five hours whereas before I could sleep all day and still not feel rested.
It’s like finally cleaning off your smudgy, caked-on dirt and grease-filled glasses and being able to see again. Colors are slightly more vibrant. I can notice the clothes on my skin and the breeze on my face. I can connect to my friends and talk easily and openly with them when before every word took effort to utter and holding on to information they were sharing with me seemed like an impossible task.
I’m learning that life is cyclical. Every time I think I’ve reached a summit, it’s just the foothill of another mountain. I don’t know if I’ll every be able to break the cycle, the back and forth between despair and hope. I don’t know if I need to. I just need to make it to the other side.
One of the main reasons I decided to start this blog was because I was stuck. Stuck in a cycle of negative thinking that left me feeling extremely hopeless. I decided to try something that would give me a goal, a tiny thing to work …
I’m so pumped that it’s already been a month and I’ve managed to complete my first goal. I think what’s especially fun about this project is that when you set yourself a specific time frame, it allows you to reflect back on the process. So, …
I used to not be a big fan of reading. Until about seventh grade when I read a book that I really loved. That book was Eragon by Christopher Paolini. I know, it’s not the most insightful or life-changing book on the planet but it did make reading fun for me. Ever since then I have been a voracious reader (I love that word, voracious).
Anyway, it often get’s hard to consistently remind myself to read when there is so much else going on and so many other things that need to get done. In the past, I’ve had weeks where I read a ton of books and then kind of slack off for the rest of the year. But that’s really not the best way to get a lot of reading done.
So, this month, I’m going to put in a concentrated effort into reading a little bit each day. My goal is 25 pages a day and I’m planning to break it into 13 pages in the morning and 12 pages at night. I’m doing this because 12 pages is so little that it’s almost a laughable number. So there’s no way I can make up excuses of being too busy not to read just that much at a time. Or at least that’s the idea.
Although I already failed on the first day, June 1, when I only read 12 pages. But I’m trying to make up for it by reading a little bit more today.
25 pages might not seem like that much, but it adds up to a lot. By the end of the month I should have read a total of 750 pages! The first book on my list is Blink by Malcom Gladwell. But after that I have no absolute plans so if you are reading this and you have any good book recommendations, please let me know!
Here’s to a month of reading good books.
P.S. It’s not too late to start your own monthly project or join me in reading more, even if it’s just 10 pages a day. June has just begun!