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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You'll have to forgive me, folks, but my mind is all over the place today. My thoughts are scattered, my timing sucks, my planning is haphazard at best, I tried to juggle too much (yet again), and I just couldn't seem to get it together to write a coherent essay this week. I know, I know, it's not like my GUS hosting day doesn't roll around, like, EVERY SINGLE WEEK at the same time, but there you go. Unprepared.
As someone who routinely has to do a lot of juggling (nature of my job) and figure out competing priorities and plans on the homefront too (I'm part of a big, chaotic family, plus there's those three critters keeping me hopping), I am starting to wonder if I'm maxed out---that I've somehow peaked in my ability to keep a bunch of stuff going at once and still do a halfway decent job at most or all of them.
Instead of the old status quo of [mostly] keeping it together, I find myself dropping the ball more often in recent years: plans unmade or unrealized due to burnout, overload, exhaustion, or distraction. Social outings and the occasional day off aren't quite as restorative as they once were; I just took a day off to run errands and only managed some of them because I didn't keep an eye on the time and the day got away from me.
What are you gonna do?
The flip answer is "not as much as I thought, apparently!" But the real response is more complicated. We all experience things in our lives that impact our ability to hold it together: stresses both external and internal, overly optimistic judgment about how much we can manage (or take on in addition to what we're already managing), or even a bout of illness (our own, or that of a loved one)---all of these can put the whammy on us.
Stress and mental overload, whatever its source, is incredibly distracting in most cases. Aside from those lucky folks who use it to cultivate laser-like focus (people taking high-stakes tests, or those responding as leaders in crisis situations), it throws most of us for a loop. We forget stuff. We second-guess ourselves. We don't give it 100% because we're not capable of operating at capacity. We fling a bunch of stuff up into the air and flail around as everything scatters. Adding another layer of stress---behavior modification---on top of all that is a daunting thought. How can you focus on THAT when you can't even remember where you left the car keys or whether you've called your sister or if you mailed that check on time?
The answer to that question is pretty simple: you just do. And if other stuff gets dropped, well, that's okay. It happens. Life provides a lot of leeway for the occasional (and even more than occasional) screw-up or hiccup or faux pas, and many people are surprised to discover that the people in their lives are pretty forgiving of all sorts of mistakes and lackluster results in other areas when they find out that you're focusing on making a better life for yourself.
I'm trusting you will cut me some slack for these scattered thoughts about scattered thoughts. Sometimes your best is just the best you can manage right now.
Who's Your Little Buddy?
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