Self-Care Priority, Existential Reflections, and Practical Problem Solving
When you're sick, you have no choice but to take a rest. It doesn't matter if you have a lot of responsibilities that you believe only you can do, because really, the very fact that you're sick proves you wrong. You obviously don't have the strength to do them, so unless you intend to accomplish nothing by doing things sloppily and haphazardly, just calmly accept the reality that you have been rendered "useless" at the moment. Have a break, take care of your self, recharge your batteries, and live to fight another day.
You are not that important to anybody else except to your self. If your body fails, you die. But when you die, does the world die with you? I don't think so. And even if they do, that's not your problem anymore because you're dead. There's no reason for you to feel guilty for being sick. It's not your fault if the world is inconvenienced by your absence. It's your right and your duty to be alive and live a meaningful life, and if that means relieving yourself of your usual day-to-day duties, then so be it.
Why does life seem to be getting harder and harder each day? I used to believe that by bravely and perseveringly facing the same challenges and not giving up, I would have developed enough strength and wisdom to finally overcome them. But that is not always the case. I didn't realize that I, a mere mortal, can and do suffer from wear and tear, and that the longer I keep on fighting a persistent enemy, there is always a part of me that gets weaker. It's important to thoroughly evaluate ourselves after every fight, and verify if we really are getting closer to victory, or if we are merely delaying our inevitable defeat. Some battles are unnecessarily prolonged. Perhaps we are just wasting our time — time that could have been spent on truly worthwhile things.
When we think about it, are we not all in the process of dying day after day? As I get older, I get weaker and dumber, until I finally succumb to utter defeat, which is death. The pursuit of physical and intellectual superiority is nothing but vanity, because it will always be a temporary accomplishment. All of our efforts trying to make our lives better are nothing more than mere attempts to delay the inevitable. No matter what we do, the struggle with pain and anxiety will persist until we die. It is, after all, our lot as children of Adam and Eve.
When there's a serious problem that everybody is affected and already aware of, stop proposing high-stakes "solutions" that you yourself haven't thought about thoroughly. Otherwise, you're just adding more anxiety to already anxious minds. Real problems require real solutions. There's no room for ambiguities and what-ifs. It has to be clearly mapped out how your "solution" will actually help and why it's worth taking the risk, if there are in fact unavoidable risks involved with its application. Don't expect others to think for you. Don't expect them to develop or improve your own ideas. Don't introduce an additional problem for them to worry about. Brainstorming for its own sake is a waste of time; it actually just exacerbates an already difficult situation.
Comments