Redoing things that worked before
The One Page Review # 9
Years ago I was in a very toxic job environment, and I remember thinking of that time as a low point in life. I was in my head a lot, and even quitting the job - which felt like a huge win at the time - didn’t last long. There’s still a little bit of trauma from that job that I’ve recently noticed, which I’ll talk about later.
Years later, I’m currently feeling a similar low. Not in terms of being surrounded by toxicity, which from the little experience I’ve had in life is the worst kind of low, but something more health-related. Four months ago I fell on my head trying to do a pull-up and suffered a concussion. It destroyed me in a way nothing has in the last five years. It’s one of the few injuries where the physical hit itself - not just the pain or disruption of it - directly alters brain chemistry and function and can have a bigger mental impact than the physical pain.
My reaction to it (not great) is what has surprised me and has helped me realize where I currently stand - in the sense that I don’t really know how I want to spend my time. Doing something outside of my regular job felt great, but I realized I’m not exactly sure what the purpose is. The last four months haven’t been great, to say the least, but there have been lots of small and big realizations.
The good thing is I’ve been through a few difficult phases in life, and once you’ve seen something happen before, it’s easier to spot the signs and fix things. Journaling was one thing I stopped doing that helped a lot back then, and I think I want to keep that going here.
Today something I read caught my eye and stuck with me, which is what made me want to start this back up. I figured since my “newsletter” is essentially dead, I could just jot things down here instead, whenever I feel like it, since it helped before.
So here’s the paragraph from His Highness Prince Rahim Aga Khan that has been the focus of my reflection today:
“Think about who you are. Engage your intellect in your journey to self-awareness. Not to become self-centered, but if you do not know who you are, how can you become interested in who anyone else is? Get to know yourself, notice the lens through which you see the world, explore what matters to you, what makes you happy, what disturbs you, and what you are good at. Get to know yourself, because your world starts with you and emanates outwards in concentric circles widening to incorporate all of humankind. Know yourself so you may know others.
Your identity is shaped by your history and your beliefs, and by your self-awareness, by what you repeatedly do. You could take the easy road through life and just coast through it, you could avoid the discomfort of difficult things - this is not the best thing for you. Life has hard moments. Be well-equipped to navigate those hard moments when they present themselves. This means building resilience. Like a muscle - it gets built when you stretch yourself, when you challenge yourself, when you persevere, when you are voluntarily willing to work through the discomfort to get to the other side. It is okay to struggle because struggle is where growth happens. This is not the same as suffering. Suffering is of no benefit to you, but struggling is the cost of resilience. So embrace the challenges that you face”
This really struck a chord with me. I remember before, penning down my thoughts helped me take relevant actions and I got so much more than I had dreamt. One of my recent actions has been booking a really interesting vacation that I’ll talk about later.
This is my current view btw - Canadian summer is the best 🌞
Shermeen