Recently I’ve been thinking about how much is expected of people, how much work and sacrifice people do daily that is just seen as normal. Sometimes, I wonder if the habits that we’ve learned from a young age that we partake in every day are healthy and help us, or if they do more harm than good. Things like working for eight hours or more and being expected to cook and clean, get a workout in and eat healthy, get enough sleep at night, the list goes on. Personally, I just don’t know how to get all of that done in a day without feeling absolutely exhausted, defeated, and unhappy.
I for one am a person who, rather than facing issues head-on, like to keep myself busy and preoccupied with other things, so that my problems don’t require any of my time because my time is already being entirely taken up by everything else. This is not a super healthy way to cope with negativity in your life, obviously ignoring something that isn’t going well is not going to end well, but I just find myself not being able to say no to things. I keep adding more things to my plate that are obviously amazing opportunities but at the end of the day, I’ve accomplished so much and yet I still feel a little bit empty inside, as morbid and upsetting as that sounds. Not asking others for help when you’re struggling is another self-destructive habit, because sooner or later those emotions are going to come out and it’s going to be ugly.
I guess I just wanted to reiterate the importance of being still in life, and by stillness, I mean sometimes just existing with your own self, without anyone else, without your phone, your laptop, without distraction, just being as you are. I think that society, especially western society, glamorizes hard work, and not just hard work but overworking and glamorizes getting no sleep as well as working yourself into the grave. I think that being still and just existing is perceived in our society as being lazy and I don’t think that’s at all how it should be seen. We work so hard every day and I think that everyone deserves a moment of stillness and moments of just existing as a human being in our body, going outside for a walk in the middle of the day just because you need to clear your mind and I have a break from all the other pressing matters in your life. Others may see it as lazy if they want to, but this is such a healthy habit to adopt in your life, and I really suggest trying it out sometime.
I think sometimes the work culture that we all partake in is majorly self-destructive and I don’t think that it offers too many benefits, especially to those who are dealing with mental health issues and for people who just don’t function at their best in the classic 9-to-5 office environment per se. We are all kind of expected to put on this façade and leave behind things that might be troubling us and that’s a really hard thing to do. Throwing ourselves into work and into jobs that we don’t enjoy, that don’t teach us anything and that make us dread waking up every day, to me, is self-destructive.
I’m focusing on the less intense forms of self-destruction for the purpose of demonstrating that even everyday occurrences and tasks can be destructive and unhealthy for us. There is the obvious engaging in nightlife, drugs and alcohol types of self-destruction, but I think the quieter, ever so subtle forms of self-destruction can be just as harmful and require a conversation as well. Isolating yourself from people that you love because you are afraid you aren’t enough for them, making rash, irrational decisions that could potentially put your life at risk, these are all forms of self-destruction as well, ones most people are aware of.
