We Need to Take A break, Relax and Breathe

Recently I felt like I wanted to run away and hide in the forest or the place where no-work related issues chasing after me. I looked back my five years of career life and I found that I didn’t have any long break even in the transition between jobs. The longest time that I took off was only four days when I quit from Samsung before I joined Huawei back this year. Of cos, I got break during the long holidays but I didn’t have chance to relax fully as I had to work and reply something by using my mobile and laptop. 

I asked myself several questions lately. Why I didn’t take long break? The reason was too simple. I wanted to grow a lot and run faster than anybody else. I set up the goals to achieve before I started my career. I always wanted to take big responsibility and hold the bigger role. I pushed myself so hard. I seek the inspiration from within my circle and out of my circle too. Some saw me that I was really doing great, holding the good role, getting high paid and rocking in corporate world.

They saw me as a strong person who walked in her own way. But I scarified a lot. I scarified my health. I had suffered eating disorder, sleeping disorder, sometimes bipolar. Emotion was ups and downs. When I was under huge pressure, I couldn’t control my anger. But it was getting better during this year as I only behaved so badly and inappropriately at work two times and cried only one time. I think I should have cheered to myself for behaving not too inappropriate as often. 

Aside all of those, I wanted to run way and hide from everything. I blamed myself sometimes for taking too many risks, responsibilities and challenges. I always did something when I was not ready. I hated to wait. So I never waited until I was ready. Maybe that was one of the reasons that I grew a lot but may be that was one of the reasons I burned out both emotionally and mentally frequently.

Everyone saw me as a strong person. But it shouldn’t have meant that I needed to take all those bullshit and take too many responsibilities. My peers said I had to learn how to push pressure rather than pulling to myself and holding it in my hands. I still remember the days I was wishing to have busy life which could be fortunate and when I got busy, I was kind of proud of myself and thought I was living a meaningful life. 

I used to love when my peers said they expected a lot from me, they had high expectation on me, they thought I was one of the smartest persons in the room, they saw me as a superwoman and blur blur blur. I used to be amused by those words and sentences and saw myself as a wonder woman or whatsoever. That sounded really great but I needed to treat myself so nice and so kind. I was always in a rush and having a hectic life. I shouldn’t have forgotten that I was only human who needed a break. 

Recently I met with some young people during my last trip and they told me that they felt so pity about me. I was surprised and asked them why. They said I was not living a life. What they said was to take it easy and breathe. I was kind of sad to be seen that way. I knew that I did everything quickly and I even forgot to chew sometimes when I was eating. I just swallow what was put on the table. I didn’t even taste whether the food was delicious or not. They gave the funny name to me which is Miss Worry because I also looked like I was worried about something every time.

But right now, by writing this article, I remind myself to take everything slowly, relax, breathe, sleep, eat and take a good break. I need to try to turn off my mobile phone and social network. I am writing this not to remind myself but to other people to take a break before we break ourselves. Well, after all those projects have been done, I would take a good break and go somewhere far far away. When I say good break, it means I want to turn off my phone, turn down my social media to give full rest to my brain and mind. I will bring some books to read, I’ll bring laptop to write a novel or whatever.

May that break comes faster!            

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