Sometimes you need a rude shock to get you to look up and face the truth.
I was working so hard and so late for a couple of months until spells of niggling chest and back pains and dizziness forced me to go for a check up.
The result: Hypertension (though it was just one day, the next day we went to the doc and pssh! it was gone).
Which is funny since I usually am considered calm and competent (my boss will never again look at me the same way).
So, I cancelled a few business trips, was forced into bed by the Man who now checks to see that I do not overdo it.
To think that I am only in my late twenties and have already to check my stress levels really irritates me, but so does the fact that I see sunshine maybe one day in a week (if I get really lucky).
And as I sit here thinking, I know that my lifestyle is not going to change anytime soon, my boss will still give me impossible deadlines, I will still try and cram in too much in a day and I will continue to feel ill most of the time.
Unless I make a stand. And I made that stand today in no uncertain terms to my team (and boss) and wonder of wonders! they actually seem to understand what I am saying (the first time too). I have cut back on my work hours (a little but still that does help too), have begun to meditate forty minutes a day (on the doctor’s orders) and am eating healthy – the point being I really did not need this to happen to know what I was doing was wrong. I needed it to happen to force myself to change. And I ask of you people just this – do not wait for a similar incident, it’s ok to pull back and tell others you cannot do it, it’s ok to insist that you get weekends off.
Especially us Indians who think we have so much to prove to the world that we let go of our health and personal lives, it just is not worth it. So get up and get moving (away from the PCs and laptops) and have a healthy and wonderful life (and the hell with deadlines and stuck-up bosses).
