Confessions of a Workaholic
I've lived but a snippet of an earthly chapter - a young'un at five and twenty. Barely into life's journey, it troubles me how often I feel weary. So afraid am I of the day this physical body gives out that it is getting harder to keep picking myself up. I know better than to dwell on doubts or entertain rumination - I've even advised others against it. So instead I've become a blindfolded race horse, only looking ahead. Only running ahead. Only moving forward. What if I'm missing something or missing out entirely?
I often blame my inability to multi-task for causing tunnel vision, an unfortunate narrow-mindedness that plagues me so. Perhaps I've been looking at this weakness so closely that I've missed the point entirely. Am I, in fact, taking on too much? Drowning myself in tasks and responsibilities to feed my self worth.
This dangerously insatiable need to be useful, valued and loved has become an addiction. A colleague once said, with some chagrin, that I would "survive anywhere". Have I been too preoccupied with surviving that I have robbed myself of the opportunity to start thriving instead?
The exasperating irony of it all. All this time spent waiting for life to begin, when I've already let quite a fair bit of it pass me by. All in the name of 'duty' and 'commitment'. Values I revered until these were tainted with pride. A decade ago, doing my best meant becoming a better person, a better version of myself. Now, that same ambition has become a quickly eroding facade. Now, it seems, doing my best (or rather doing all I can) has become the means to a much more selfish end - to be the best or, at the very least, to always be better than everyone or anyone else.
Oh the sinful saccharine taste of 'victory'. What good is this sickening obsession with perfection when every 'win' is hollow and empty. To all the kind and well-meaning souls I've scorned before and turned away from, I'm sorry. I've let my ego go to my head. In failing to recognise and accept my own imperfectness, I've embarked on this ill-fated crusade against everything and anything that reminded me of it. You did not deserve my ignorance and neglect any more than I deserved your unassuming goodwill and unconditional concern.
I'm sorry that I placed too much emphasis on being the (best) team that I forgot that we were, at the very core first and foremost, a team. I must accept that as I am flawed, so is everyone.
To my incredibly forgiving and supportive colleague, friend and confidant, thank you for patiently nudging me onto the right path and believing in me no matter the weather of my skies (I acknowledge and apologise for how turbulent it has been lately).
I confess that I once envied your innate talent to nuture and uplift the people around you. I have now begun to understand that it is not a superpower. It is because that is genuinely who you are.
I've been working myself to the bone and trying my hardest to become someone I'm not. That is why I've been feeling so stuck, frustrated and unfulfilled.
Who am I beneath it all? A person wanting to belong, to be a part of something greater than myself. So much so that I've resulted to conformity and suppression to fit in, instead of being truthful.
It's high time I allowed myself to believe that I am much more than a puzzle piece. I am and can be whoever I want to be, unapologetically (within legal and moral boundaries, of course). Perhaps when I start seeing uncertainty, volatility, conflict and ambiguity (and complexity) as freedom and opportunity, life and the world could seem less like a prison and more like the metaphorical oyster and me - a unique pearl rather than a perfect one.
And yes, this was written late at night under the influence of caffeine.