Letter #5 - Want vs Need

Dear readers,

I've been patiently suffering from a creative slump. It seems that inspiration does not want to lend me a hand and is being far too stingy with her creative juices! But speaking with a friend yesterday brought up an interesting question for me. It was a discussion of wanting as opposed to needing, in terms of people and relationships. Which is better? Which would you prefer?

In my mind, one is an act that you can control and that you have a choice in and the other is more of a helpless action, something that overcomes you past a point of control. But is that really better in any way? Surely the act of making a choice makes the choice much more satisfying. Whereas the argument can also follow the other way; that by not having a choice, clearly whatever it is that you need is more important than rational thought and sound reasoning.

I've always said and will continue to say that I don't need people. It wasn't even a line that I would intentionally say but the hard-ass inside of me would never admit to the weakness that I perceived of needing someone or something. Like I said, it felt like a decision made without control. And I choose never to lose control. While I don't think of it as weakness any more, the reservation will always be there.

Instead, I will rationally decide to spend time with friends as and when I want to. And if I don't want to, it will not pain me at all to do exactly that and not involve myself. Writing this post makes me sound so emotionless but if anything, the act of choosing is fuelled by emotion. You choose to make time for those people and things that you want in your life.

Through all of this nonsensical rambling, I haven't really come to any sort of conclusion regarding this, but I feel like the best kind of action, and relationships, have an equal share of both. You want to spend time with those people irrespective of, but also acknowledging, the fact that you do need them in your life just as much. Essentially, your life would be a little less of the life that you know without them in it.

Sorry if this all sounds like the ramblings of a mad woman, but I just needed to get it out of my head. Let me know what your thoughts are on the topic.

Until next time, be inspired...

Love,

Z 

Letter #4 - Relax.

Dear readers,

I found this quote on Pinterest this morning at the absolute moment that I needed it. I wasn't planning on uploading anything at all until the semester was over and yet reading that compelled me to get back to this; to writing and to doing what I love. And most importantly, it reminded me to relax!

Society as a whole is so busy nowadays and the world is bustling with people doing amazing, beautiful, creative things every second of every day. But with that achievement of doing things, there can also be an underlying pressure to achieve more and do more and be more. And with that, people burn out. Right now, I'm watching myself burn out and turn into this wandering wreck of a person. And yet I have maybe only lived a quarter of my life and I am already condemning myself as a ‘failure’.

The line that really resonated with me was that “time takes time”. I think that is so aptly put. Time as a concept is not something we can control; it will do things in its own way and definitely in its own time :P the way that modern life goes, we are far too used to control and order and rigidity in our lives that when things are out of our control, we don’t know how to process it. Just because we have given time a name and given a day the set number of hours that we have, and the weeks and months are numbered and named as we want them to be, that does not mean that we grow and blossom with the time that passes. Unfortunately in watching the clock and in counting down the time it will take you to be an adult, to get a career, to find love, to live happily ever after, we don’t notice the things that pass us by. The days that we won’t and can’t get back.

I will never get back this time that I am spending in writing this post and I will never feel exactly the same as I do in this moment. But I'm glad for that, because right now I'm content in letting my life happen the way it needs to happen. Regardless of the people I know and the deadlines I have and all the other stress in my life. I just need to live to the best of my ability and feel things as strongly as they come. In doing this, I won’t fail at life. At least not today.

Until next time, be inspired…

Love,

Z

Letter #3 - Apologies

Dear readers (and family and friends),

When I get stressed, I'm not the most pleasant person to be around. Actually that's a horrific understatement. Normally I try to actively contemplate my actions and whether I'm being a good person in my day to day life, but when I'm stressed, that is all out of the window. so I want to apologise for that.

I neglect my friends and I impose myself and my bad mood even more on my family. From the stress, I internalise a lot and get stress-related anxiety, which then makes me more stressed, and more anxious and so the cycle continues in this awful catch-22 situation. For this, I am sorry and to my family and friends, I hope I'm not too much of a pain to be around. I love you really :p

The reason I am writing about this is because I have been feeling majorly stressed lately. In the traditional sense of work getting to be too much, but also on a more existential level where I feel like every action I take will affect my life ten years down the line and so I want to make the right choices for myself but also by taking into account the people in my life.

Don't get me wrong, I do love being at university and the things that I'm learning make me feel as though I can do something to make a difference in the world. But sometimes it can all feel like too much. I think it is important to acknowledge that when it does happen so that you can then adjust how you are feeling and the perspective you want to take.

How about you guys? Does anyone have a good way of dealing with stress? Let me know!

Until next time, be inspired...

Love, 

Z

Letter #2 - Feeling Overwhelmed

Dear Readers,

This post has been in the works for over a week now and I suppose that just makes it more aptly on topic. I've had the start of the university semester and with it, the start of autumn. For me at least, with that came this sense of stress and feeling overwhelmed, simply because that is what my mind has been trained to feel. After over eighteen years of education, it is like I've conditioned myself to both love and dread autumn and with it, the start of the school year for most.

Throughout August, I was so looking forward to the colder months and the cosy, homely feeling that comes with it, only to feel bogged down right now. Lectures only started this week. The levels of anxiety that I feel due to that are all over the place and will continue to be for at least two more weeks.

I'm trying to take every day as it comes. But that is much easier said than done, when your mind refuses to turn itself off. I feel like I have so many questions to ask myself: where I see myself, where I'm heading and what I should be doing with my life. 

And I know, that if you're reading this, you must think that I shouldn't be in such a hurry to sort everything out. I'm only twenty, after all. But - there seem to be a lot of buts in this post - if I don't find the answers soon, I think that I'll end up settling for a career and settling into a life that I'm not as passionate about as I should be.

I have the privilege of education and a good family and friends who I am incredibly grateful for so I have enough that I know I shouldn't worry. So if it wasn't evident already, I have been a little on the confused side this week but logically I know that things will sort themselves out, regardless of how much I stress.

I think that's enough contemplating for today.

Does anyone else ever get that feeling? As though you'll lose your footing at any moment? Of feeling too overwhelmed at times? Let me know how you deal with it.

Until next time, be inspired...

Love, 

Z 

Letter #1 - Begin Again

Dear reader, (if anyone is actually reading this...)

This is my second attempt at keeping a blog. the last one consisted of a total of four posts, so the laws of probability are not on my side. But all that aside, I want to at least try, if for no other reason than that I love to write. For myself, for peace of mind, and for knowing that I stuck with it and accomplished something.

There is so much going on in my head at any one time, that I could fill several beautiful notebooks with my crazy musings. If only I could get out of my head long enough to forget that this is on the internet where anyone (or more likely, no one) will read it. So, that is my aim; to work through this frustrating self-consciousness towards what I want to achieve.

The point of this blog is exactly as the title state: A Thousand Letters Later. I want to get to that turning point of having written a thousand blog posts, all of which will be phrased as letters. I want to see where I am in my life at that ominous future point of 'Later' and this is my way of chronicling it. More importantly, this is meant to be fun. So it will be! I'm hoping that by not putting the usual pressure on myself, that I will be able to keep this light and fun, but also serious if I need it to be.

Sorry if this all sounds self involved, but it has taken me up until now to realise that for as good as it is to do what you can for others, sometimes we need to think of ourselves first. This is me doing exactly that. This is a place just for me, without bogging other people down with my concerns and being free to focus on something away from the stresses that come with modern day life.

Until the next time, be inspired...

Love, 
Z