Reflection

Not really sure where to begin with this post, thoughts are a bit of a jumble.

I've mentioned in other posts that I've perhaps spread myself a little thin this year.  I co-own and manage a company that handles investigative insurance/civil law claims; we're a 6 man business with a good yearly turnover, but a very high through-put of cases that take up 5-6 days a week.  I also own and operate a sole-trader firm doing webservers/hosting/backend support, this is a more recent venture but it takes up a chunk of my time.  Further to these two I also work as a part time lecturer, covering 1-3 days a week teaching at my local University.  On top of this, I am also doing a Masters level post-graduate course in academic practice (basically a teaching qualification), this usually represents at least a day a week of study, with another day a week on implementation & review of how it impacts my live teaching.

As you can guess this doesn't really leave me much time.  The new addition this year was the postgrad course, and it often teeters on the edge of "the straw that broke the camels back".

'Why are you telling us this? This is meant to be a health blog' I hear you chirp, and rightly so.  Well, during the last few months I've shared and documented everything I've done towards my health.  I've achieved some good results, overcome some problems and generally kept going.  Contrary to common sense, the extra activity and effort has actually given me energy and motivation in everything else I do.  We all know this, but I still marvel at how counter-intuitive it is that in order to become motivated to do more, we must do more.  It makes me chuckle sometimes.

You also know from recent posts I was very unwell for the best part of a month not long ago.  The simple truth and crux of this post is I am finding it incredibly difficult to recover from this and get back to the energetic, motivated and healthy feeling Ben I was before the surgery & subsequent illness.

I managed to hit the gym on Saturday, as part of my goals laid out in the previous post.  Now it was a very minor session as I haven't been in quite some time, but I went all the same.  I enjoyed every minute of it too.  I then went out all day and night Saturday with some friends, enjoying the praise and compliments that was being showered on me for the apparently very visible results of all my efforts, how good I looked, how much better I appeared, someone even told me I was apparently glowing.

Suffice to say Saturday involved alcohol, and I ended up wasting the entire day Sunday doing sweet **** all with a nauseous hangover.  To compound this unpleasant situation I'd forgotten to go shopping and ended up eating bad food, what little I did it.  Further to this, I had a very large pile of University work to get done before today, and guess what? Yup, didn't get it done.  I'm going to have to try and get some of it done while at work at my other office job this morning, and squeeze the rest in tonight.  That means working late, and no bike or gym.

Fast forward to this morning and I'm reaping the "rewards".  I'm exhausted, warn out, feeling about as energetic as a rock and as slim as a hippo.  I've had a not entirely healthy breakfast (not terribly bad either, but not my usual good choices) and the week is off to a fantastic start.  Oh, and the spring sunshine has completely disappeared too, being replaced by drizzle, gray clouds and dullness.

I feel like I'm juggling and dropping every ball in the process.

As children and young adults we're brought up to always aspire for more, to always achieve and seek to further ourselves.  I'm doing a teaching masters to further a career in lecturing and working two other jobs to support that goal in the meantime, while keeping the option open of completely owning one of the companies if the teaching doesn't work out.  Fantastic on paper, but it's driving me nuts.  

Is it wrong that at this point in time I'd like nothing more than a 9-5 job where I can completely detach work & home, and when I'm off, be able to do what I want (in this case the fitness/exercise/gym) without constantly having to feel guilty for not working?

Part of the reason I started this big health kick was to be more energetic and enthusiastic about my work (all the various avenues).  To begin with this worked, and paid off very well.  After having a small interruption though, I now feel it's the work getting in the way of the health.  The balance has shifted entirely.  I am actually giving serious consideration to quitting at least one of the jobs and folding the smaller business in order to focus on the exercise and health.  I'd give up the postgrad too if I wasn't so close to finishing it.

This goes against everything society says we should aim for and hope to achieve.  Keep the money, keep the titles, I just want to focus on feeling alive and healthy.