Funky Poet has been my random virtual diary since 2013. What first started on Blogspot, gradually moved onto WordPress, and I eventually got my domain name too. But the one thing that never changed was my inconsistency! 

“But Simone, you’ve been so consistent with your posts lately!”. I’m just as surprised as you. I’ve never been consistent for such a long time, it hasn’t been, just feels like it. And I don’t mean to whine and sound ungrateful, but it truly has been exhausting and mind-numbing on multiple occasions. So what am I trying to say?

Hit The Wall

We’ve all used the term ‘crash and burn’ or a variation of it at some point. It has almost become a part of most of our vocabulary. And while it is a whole emotion during regular times, it has somehow transformed into a constant mood for some of us during the quarantine. 

I know I am mentally exhausted by constantly struggling to post every week. And to most this wouldn’t seem like a big deal, but writing is hard you guys. Because not only am I trying to come up with content you would like to enjoy, but I’m also trying to keep up with uploading as often as I can. 

And here’s the thing, this pressure of trying to keep up? It’s not even from my readers. It’s mostly from within because I’m somehow always stressing. Especially on Fridays, as soon as my post goes live, I am already trying to come up with a topic for next week. In fact, on some occasions, I’ve consistently obsessed over the topic for next week while I’m still trying to finish working on this week’s topic. 

So why is it so stressfully exhausting for me?

For the past three weeks, I’ve been working all night to have a blog ready by 11 in the morning, because I cannot come up with a topic until Monday. And even then, I take the extra day for granted. I won’t start working on a post until Tuesday evening, and by then I’m just all panic and no disco. And like I mentioned in “Overthink. Freeze. Overanalyze. Repeat.”, the one thing I cannot stop doing is overthinking. From the topic of the post, to whether I should use puns, just turn it into a shitpost, and get deep and personal. I will legit spend an hour and a half trying to find the most appropriate pictures too. I honestly end up feeling like the bachelorette on most occasions because of how intense these sessions get! 

“But what’s your point, Simone?”

Dark Times

What I’m trying to say is regardless of how good people think we are, we will always be our worst critic. ‘But is that bad?’ you ask. No, it isn’t unless it becomes almost toxic. Not that I enjoy speaking about myself, but here’s exactly what I mean by toxic. Every time I write something, I’m always trying to find faults in the tiniest of things. “There’s nothing wrong in that. It’s good to make sure everything is in place”, you say. 

Maybe there isn’t, but for me, it gets toxic when I’m trying to find faults even though there isn’t. It’s like I’d look for any reason to either completely get rid of everything I’ve done or just try to find ways of ‘making it better’. And here’s the thing, it doesn’t just stop at the writing, I start finding faults in things I say or do in my day to day life. At this point, it becomes a self-bashing event that will probably never end. And is that healthy? No. But will I continue bashing myself? Yes, of course, I will.

Perfect World

In recent times, I’ve noticed how hard most of us are on ourselves, and it only gets amplified in times like the lockdown. I’ve had so many people say how they find it downright hard to work from home and go about with their life. In ‘The Inescapable Aftermath’, I mention how this situation will soon become the new norm for us, and here’s why it might not be a good idea for most of us. 

The definition of working from home has completely changed since the lockdown. Everyone keeps saying it’s twice the amount of work with the same amount of stress. And that’s just for people who still have a job. For the others that don’t aren’t doing any better, with most of us succumbing to social media, our anxiety has been in overdrive. 

From a series of unfortunate events around the world to an impending fog of uncertainty in my head. There’s so much that makes you second-guess, talk yourself down, and so much more. In an attempt to keep up with the world, we forget that at times, all we need is some major TLC. Maybe taking a break from social media, watching that show you’ve always wanted to on Netflix, or even just staying in bed doing absolutely nothing can really take away some of that. 

But what happens when none of that seems to help?

Start Over Again

I’ve erased so many of my drafts at the very last minute because overthinking and stressing about how to make it better just didn’t seem to help. I’m literally overthinking about this very post, and I honestly can’t and won’t stop. 

However, starting over applies to a whole lot of things. And as scary as that sounds, it isn’t half as bad. While a clean slate may seem like a bit much in most situations, it is often needed. Especially when we’ve let something get so bad, it’s almost impossible to look past it. 

It could be staying at a job you didn’t quite like, an unhappy relationship, cutting ties with toxic people or more. It seems easy enough to say all of this, but I know that having left a job I didn’t like was the right thing to do. It wasn’t easy, sure, but it did wonders for my anxiety! 

Now that I think of it, I’m not too sure where I was going with this. I’ve had a tough time accepting that doing this every week has been nerve-wracking. Not only because I had to keep up with a schedule, but it doesn’t feel like I’m doing a good job putting my thoughts out there. Despite this, I’m always anxiously checking the stats to figure out if it worked, and have on most occasions, put myself down if they weren’t what I was expecting. And while that’s unhealthy, unfortunately, that happens to be the only thing that takes my mind off my other insecurities. Especially with how anxiety-ridden I’ve been during the lockdown. 

So, me telling you to let go in some ways could make me a hypocrite. Does that mean it isn’t something to consider? No, because I’ve let go of things only to realise that I’m better off. 

We crash and burn because we put this ridiculous amount of pressure along with a healthy drizzle of expectations on ourselves, only to succumb to the pressure and then put ourselves down because of our fear of failure. Apart from being an unnecessary characteristic, this also leads to self-doubt and so much more. But is letting go going to help with an issue as humongous as this? Maybe. It may not seem like much, but taking that first step towards changing our perspective could help ease the tiniest bit of anxiety we experience at the mere mention of any minor inconvenience. 

Starting over with a clean slate may sound like an annoyingly daunting task, but it is the best thing you can do for your anxiously, overworked mind. However, I’d love to hear if you’ve dealt with a similar situation differently. And if you enjoyed this read, you can find more of my work on here!