How I learned to stop worrying and enjoy the process

It’s been an interesting time. In mostly the best of ways, with just enough sour sprinkled in to make everything else a bit more sweet. Like a sweet plum in sugar, I’ve grown comfortable, complacent, stagnant… Some (The inner demon mostly) would say. But to be quite frank life has been happening and I’ve been busy. I found myself clawing at the merciless clock for extra hours and minutes as I’m trying to move everything along, and managed to wrestle just enough for everything to align and keep on working out.

With everything looking up, the struggle of keeping the heading might be lost in the detail, so can the ability to realise its time to stop. It’s a different struggle, where things are so good we don’t know where to stop. Like the poor victim of that last bite of cake in the Monty Python sketch, squeezing that extra bit in can prove detrimental if not spectacularly fatal.

That’s a lot of words with no merit or particular point. I know. Trust me I’m doing my best to get there in as close to 140 characters or less as I can, doing my best and failing mind you, but that’s okay too.

Today will mark the 94th entry in my personal journal. This being the point of this exercise in hindsight, insight and maybe even foresight(gasp!). I want to share what writing a journal has become, is, and isn’t for me now after it’s become a full fledged habit. 

It’s an opportunity to look back and see repetitive patterns of thoughts and behaviour. I’ve once seen that I started my entries for 4 separate days with “I feel weird”, where to be quite frank, weird isn’t exactly the most descriptive of adjectives. This has guided me to stop, take a few deep breaths, meditate and try to better understand what was it that I was feeling. It turned out I was feeling stressed about a very particular set of things and circumstances, that I just wouldn’t give the time of day to. And that thought just kept on bouncing around, unacknowledged, unwanted. Because “It can’t be something as simple or silly as that”, “I’m a big strong, well adjusted and established man hurt durr and those worries are beneath me”. Turns out they are not, and sometimes a silly bouncing thought denied comes back and knocks the wind out of you like a solid straight.

It’s not perfect and it doesn’t have to be, for me at least. I do have to fight the urge to wash myself clear of dark thoughts, imperfect actions and notions. To write myself impeccable like Aragorn swinging Anduril. To write in perfect prose. To make it all fit. It could, but it doesn’t have to. It can be alogical, because I sometimes am a-logical. It can be Joycean, a stream of consciousness. I’ve quickly found that if I want it to be true, from the heart, honest it can never be perfect, and once again I’ve learned to be okay with that.

It’s an opportunity to hold yourself accountable an opportunity to be compassionate. More than one entry or paragraph I will have written speaks of people that will have caused me grief. Wronged me in my perception. Where truth be told, they’ve done nothing of the sort more often than not. In writing down my reactions to people I’ve given myself a rare opportunity to look into the mind of Mateusz of the days past, and it turns out that dude is sometimes a bit all over the place. 

The trick here is, that it’s absolutely okay to be wrong, to be not okay, to be sad or upset or just need support, and it’s in this bit that journaling has helped. I now know how I felt then, I don’t get to be mad at myself for feeling a certain way because at that point in time it might’ve been the very best I could do. 

I originally wanted to make this about accountability but it didn’t feel honest. It’s about compassion. I feel in writing about how I feel about life, others and things I have found compassion and humility. For both myself, allowance for imperfection that I sometimes chase, and others, as they also ( I would think! ) experience all of those things and can’t always be their very best selves. 

It’s an opportunity to be mindful and grateful. This is a simple one. Having your gratitude recorded. The days where you’re grateful for ibuprofen and the day when you are grateful for sunshine. The days where I’ve eaten a family sized pizza or an equivalent thereof in miscellaneous foods and then wrote how I feel sick. All of those, when read back, help me be more grateful and mindful. Next time I might meditate because I remember how grateful I was that I did, and then be grateful for self control when ordering takeaway. I’m uncertain what the polar opposite of a vicious cycle and as it stands would feel it’s cheating to google it. I’ll settle for... totally un-vicious cycle and call it a day. Because that what this particular benefit of journaling has been for me. A totally un-vicious cycle.

It’s reminded me once again, that I just genuinely like to write. Even if it’s just for myself, intimate things, dark things, silly things, funny things, my things. I enjoy writing them down. Some of them I might think to share, some of them will never see the light of day. Writing them down has been joyous even if the words themselves weren’t always that, not even close.

It’s also on a short list of things I recommend you give a try. For the craic of it all. 

Because as self helpy as it sounds, it’s been a worthwhile addition to my journey through life and has been making it all a bit more fun for me. I think as a habit, it simply is here to stay. Low investment, high reward, holds up to scrutiny and stops me scrutinising needlessly. Whats not to love.