Balance

PS. watch 'A Simple Favour', it's like a Liane Moriarty novel 

Whenever I think of the word 'balance' all I hear is Yixing during Youth With You during the audition process/initial performance haha. That's besides the point. 

One thing I've noticed that everyone, including me have learnt during lockdown is the joy from and the need to continue finding the balance between work and relaxation. I don't think there's anything more to say about that because I feel that everyone has. But nowadays especially with my final high school exams coming out, I find that I'm doing too much relaxing and not enough (well zero) studying which is exactly what you want. I'm sure that watching Ali Abdaal's videos on productivity and studying will motivate me. 

In all seriousness, what triggered me to write this was a video by Leah's Fieldnotes, my most recent Youtuber obsession. As of the filming day she had just moved to Montréal and had a hard time finding balance within her relationship. 

When talking about her experience and feelings I found myself identifying with a lot of them. Looking back at my friendships and relationship that had issues, even my mum voiced that there was a common thread throughout all of them - that I spent a lot of time with these people, not that it is an issue, but there was an imbalance between me time and time with them.  

My MBTI personality test says that I'm an extrovert but I also recently discovered my introverted side and that I really need alone time too in order to recharge. In these relationships/friendships - although in their point of view it doesn't seem like it that - there were no boundaries, a big imbalance because I felt as if I spent 24/7 with them and invested so much effort as well. And because of this, those relationships suffered. I became very irritable, didn't want to spend any time with them and to an extent came to dislike them. 

I'm finding it difficult to put my thoughts and feelings into words so click here to watch the video, she does these feelings a lot more justice than me. Recently, I hung out with a childhood/long-life friend who I experienced these feelings with previously, although we hadn't ended our friendship we became distant over the past few years. And after hanging out together I realised that we are better friends now where there's a balance in comparison to before when we spent all of our time together. 

Balance is so important. As much as you need to invest time and effort into your relationships, it is equally as important to invest time in yourself. Without this time for yourself, you can never truly process your thoughts and emotions or recharge, you'll spiral... and that ain't good for anyone. 

It shouldn't have taken 3 (well technically 4) relationships to realise this. I should've realised the pattern after the second one. But now I have, as a part of my 'Deeper Relationships' goal that I wrote about I think finding the balance between me time, and time with them will really help me form deeper and more meaningful connections. 

Written on: 22/10/20