In adult life, there are roughly three things you have to manage. Work, private life and your health. If there’s a problem in one area, but the other two are stable, you can manage. But problems in two or all three areas, that’s too much. If you’ve got a fight in the family, or a sudden event that shakes up your private life, and you’ve also got health problems, you’ll soon struggle at work. If you’ve got a conflict at work and a fight with your spouse, your immune system probably suffers too. A difficult project at work and you’ve got the flu means you don’t have energy to socialize (or be nice, patient and understanding…)
Sometimes, you may not consciously realize that you’re sick, or that you keep having the same argument with a coworker or friend. Humans are good at being blind to problems.
Here’s something to be aware of: Problems always come in threes. So if there’s a recurring issue at the job, chances are there are two more issues, and you’d better hope they’re all confined to the job because then it’s isolated. But if you can’t pinpoint exactly what else is wrong, you should seriously keep an eye on your health and private life too.
Questions to ask yourself:
- What minor physical discomforts do I regularly have?
- What situations keep occurring at work and in my private life?
Some generic advice that’s completely useless unless you already know whether and if so how it applies to you:
- You are what you eat
- You are what what you eat eats
- Let food be thy medicine and let thy medicine be food
- People who think others are the problem, are probably the problem themselves. People who think they are the problem, are probably not the problem.
- What’s often wrong with people is the idea that there’s something wrong with them.
- Problems are an integral part of life. They’re not a bug, they’re features.
- “No” is a complete sentence.
- Survival doesn’t require a PhD.
- Slow down.
- Slow down.
- Slow the fuck down.