When Your Life is Too Much to Handle -

When you have a lot more than you can handle

It’s the beginning of a new month. I flipped through the pages of my bullet journal, starting from the first page of the previous month. I wanted to make a reflection page, as I usually do at the end of a month. I was a couple of days late, but anyway I still want to do it. But I quickly realized not much I can write for the reflection of the past month. I had only several pages, budget planning that didn’t work as it should have. Expense note that is completely empty. Several notes from the meetings I attended, but I wished I didn’t. It was chaotic.

These several months have been many downs for me. Not that I have any problem with the close ones. I just couldn’t keep up with the pace of life. In which I hate so much that I couldn’t.

People have been judging me so much since I graduated school. I excelled in academics, if I may say. In which not everyone does. But it was just something that I love to do. I don’t think it is something people can blame me for. How is it my fault that I love reading and thinking and working independently, and less love working with people? How is it my fault that I seek for perfection and idealism rather than doing wrong things just because everybody is doing it?

You might say I am exaggerating. Maybe I am. But that’s how my brain wired. And I believe there is nothing wrong with it.

Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, was once dissatisfied with how the community works in the Age of Ignorance (Jahiliyyah). Most people would just say, let it be, it happens like that for ages. Don’t bother to change anything. But it will feel like torture to your heart. Improvement happens when your heart calls you to do something different.

Recently my heart calls for a change.

What change should I make, I don’t know yet. But it keeps telling me, something is off. Good life can’t happen this way.

Looking Back

I looked back closer to myself. Did I already meet the needs of my body? God has given me this body, so that I can use it to worship Him. As similar as God has given me everything else, I also have responsibility to care for it. What did I do to maintain it well? Unfortunately I can’t say much. I rarely exercise. My meal intake was a mess. I rarely do fasting other than Ramadan. My joints are crying for its sadaka, the Dhuha, the morning prayer that should be done before noon. My broken heart needs Quran reading as a cure.

Then I looked at my spouse. How I was being irresponsible for his needs. How the home is unorganized. How I could have done better to support his career and his devotion to his parents. How my work frequently interfered with his. What breaks me even more, he never complains. It was me who always complained.

Looking at my day job is even worse. All responsibility is overlapping on top of each other. My timetable is as packed as a sandwich. A sandwich so big I cannot take a full bit and chew it well. Everything is falling apart.

I was a mess.

A speaker on a webinar I attended recently said, we are working with humans. It doesn’t matter how knowledgeable or skillful we are, if something is off with your heart, people who you are working with can sense that. Then you will never get the result you wanted, no matter how skillful you are.

Rearranging the Heart

My heart and mind is a mess, but this is not the end of my life. Let’s begin arranging them one by one.

Everything I had experienced in the past, they are good lessons I can take, but let the past be the past. You are you at this moment. Do your best for this exact moment only.

Do what you think is best. Do it now, rather than regretting it in the future. Follow your heart. If something doesn’t fit your conscience, leave it.

Anything broken can be fixed. Even if it is slow. Even if it will never be the same again. If you ignore it, it will not fix itself anyway. Neither can you expect someone else to fix it for you.

Start with something easy. A long walk begins with a small step. Don’t run if you don’t have the energy to. Life is not a sprint. It’s a marathon.

Acknowledge every improvement. Use the bullet journal to help. Reflect more often. Every single thing good is good, no matter how small it is.

Pray God. There is no power in this universe other than His. For Him, anything is possible. God said Be, and It is.

Productivity and Well-Being