GUS (Gave Up Smoking) is a community support diary for Kossacks in the midst of quitting smoking. Any supportive comments, suggestions or positive distractions are appreciated. If you are quitting or even just thinking of quitting, please join us! We kindly ask that politics be left outside.
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For someone who spends a lot of her time on the job anticipating things, and being hyper-aware of timelines and deadlines (not just for myself, but for other people), I find that in my off-work hours, stuff tends to sneak up on me.
Like, a lot.
I don't know if it's a function of my being expected to never drop the ball at work that makes my subconscious sense of when stuff happens (or should happen) check out when I leave the office, but it does. I'm not known for my mad organization skills on the homefront.
I constantly almost miss deadlines for bills, time-sensitive offers, and time-limited events. I often think something is weeks away when it's right around the corner. I am usually able to scramble and do what needs to be done (eventually, before time runs out) but it's often a matter of shifting into crisis mode, or having to juggle a whole bunch of other stuff to make it happen. If I'm honest, it makes a lot of work for me sometimes, and I end up kicking myself for not paying closer attention.
And yet, I was plagued by the opposite problem when I first quit smoking. I was all of a sudden VERY aware of all the time that was spooling out in front of me, and I'd spent a lot of years kinda sorta planning for the eventual day I would really, honest-to-God, finally quit. I was all too aware of time, and how much I had of it, and how I couldn't fill it up with enough distractions and activities. (That state of mind actually seems pretty great now---imagine not knowing how to fill the hours, instead of scrambling to figure out how to get enough done in the meager time you have available!----but in the moment it wasn't so much fun, if I remember it right).
Time's funny that way. It's sort of elastic, taking on different qualities depending on what's happening in your life, or how distracted you are by whatever is going on. Time itself doesn't change, but our perception of it sure does. The older we get, the faster it seems to go. The busier or more distracted we are, the less we notice. Some kinds of change (modifying a daily behavior or being forced to learn something new under pressure) can be so stressful you can't help but be very aware of it---sometimes TOO aware of it! Other types of change---the slow shift of fashions, musical styles, our surroundings, political climates, learning a skill, growing up, getting older---are more gradual, and thus a little more sneaky.
If you're lucky, the stressful kind gets less stressful over time, as new habits and routines form and the Stressful New Thing fades into the not-so-noticeable New Normal, and the slow kind doesn't pass completely unnoticed. Every so often, it's not a bad idea to pause for a moment and take a good look at the stuff that's sneaking up on you, take a breath, figure out where you're going, and spend a moment appreciating what you've gone through to get as far as you have.
Who's Your Little Buddy?
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