The Impossible Care Balance
Whether you’ve realised it or not yet, it’s nearly impossible to create balance in anything.
Food (oh how I hate the word moderation).
Work and life (work-life balance is a myth).
Procrastination (…).
It becomes increasingly warranted to throw the word ‘balance’ into our daily activities.
To be successful, we must balance.
Balance our time.
Balance our friends.
Balance our commitments.
Balance our bodies.
But what about care?
Care.
Care for what?
I see it split in two ways (like many balancing acts) — for yourself and for others.
This relates to a mental exercise which I will take you on. The same of which is percolating through my brain on a daily basis.
The reason for writing this, publishing it to the world, is purely therapeutic.
Although I haven’t found the need to do so otherwise, I did find the daily blog enriching in this therapy, so here I am again.
I don’t need answers.
Although I’m sure someday, they’ll become more apparent.
So here goes.
‘Danial A: Do you miss this?
Danial B: Yeah, kinda — do you?
Danial A: Hmm… to a certain extent. It freed my brain up for other tasks.
Danial B: I wonder if I have been more productive in 2019 without it?
Danial A: Who knows.
Danial B: Good to be back for a day at least.’
We have two cares in life (at a macro level, anyway).
- Care for me
- Care for them
I rank them as such as I believe this is how it should be.
I have been victim to reversing them and I’m sure a lot of people are.
Subjectively, I would put this as my preferred position although I’m aware that others may see me in a role where these are reversed. Why?
I have been extremely fortunate over the last three years to meet individuals with incredible careers. Of those individuals, many have stayed in contact. I regularly (every 6–9 months or so) email or meet them. These individuals also apply to friends and not professionals.
But out of the professionals I’ve met, they have always been willing to help me or someone who I think deserves their expertise.
Although I worked hard to meet and stay in contact, I truly believe in a collaborative world.
Whenever someone has something they need; a job, internship, contact or introduction — I have tried my best to accommodate.
It’s not always asked, but nearly always implied.
I don’t want the credit, I just seeing it as sharing a network I didn’t have either.
So in that vein, I can see why people might think I put others first.
But let me discuss each and what they mean to me (i.e. my history).
1. Care for me
My journey to self awareness really started in March 2017 with counselling using Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.
I had it for five months before studying abroad.
I came back from studying abroad to a daily blog which I started in December 2017 and ended in December 2018.
The reason I went to counselling in the first place was general anxiety disorder, but it stemmed from people pleasing, arrogance, self-induced stress and poorly managed friendships.
Since I started counselling, I reversed care for others into care for me.
It’s done me a world of mental good.
It’s encouraged (I still don’t know how) others to do the same.
The ‘care for me’ journey was for me. But shared with thousands.
Accountability and vulnerability were my cornerstones.
I changed over 365 days, which some of you would have noticed if you were avid readers.
2. Care for them
Them is anyone else.
Anyone else is loosely defined by outside family.
The disconnect here is that I don’t talk about care for family. Not that it’s implicit but I’m still figuring out my connection to family and something I will be talking about in upcoming media posts or in a longer-form book in the near future.
Through school, I wasn’t popular.
I tried to win friends with my intelligence.
Helping with homework, passing empty favours and being generally a nuisance to any onlooker.
It also made me complicit in cheating, which at the time I was unaware of, and now acts as one of my bigger regrets.
I just wanted friends.
But I was trying to win friends in a way that meant losing myself.
The trend trickled into university.
But I tried being normal.
Normal being going to clubs.
I didn’t drink but I surrender myself slave to the clubbing lifestyle. Which I hated.
Events over the course of that first semester made me lose myself even more.
So where are we at? And why does it all matter?
I’m stuck.
Stuck in a paradigm which celebrates the care for me and care for others but recognises the drawbacks of each.
Relationships have never been my strong suit.
Not friendships, the bit after that.
That bit troubles me. For a few reasons.
I’ve never been in one, so my experience level is at the surface.
It’s not scary, but it’s not logical.
And for me, although a largely emotional and vulnerable person, makes systemising the process difficult.
There are no reasons for why I haven’t been and why others are.
It’s the single-most reason I compare myself to others.
Not in any other department but that.
Here are some downsides to each ‘care for me’ and ‘care for them’ which I think mentally blocks me from recognising when someone is interested in starting said relationship.
But I don’t know if these are right, it’s just a brain fart.
Care for me
- Too consumed in my own head
- Ignore noise and distractions
- Never too concerned with other people’s opinions (good or bad)
Care for them
- Often the person to help out the most
- Afraid to assume a personality which I am not (for fear of being rejected or found out)
- Not aware of ‘signs’
Whether any of this true is quite frankly trivial.
But it annoys me, and therefore warrants a post.
I’ve said it to friends and now the world, this topic is my only insecurity.
I’ve worked incredibly hard, been very introspective and tirelessly battled to see that the others are managed.
But this one has gone by the wayside.
I’m young. I’m 21.
^see the rhyme?
I’ve spent time with family asking and observing.
I’m learning, I know I am.
But I suppose the best advice is to be patient. And I don’t see this post as an outcry of impatience.
Just one of honesty. With myself and anyone reading.
I’m not eager for it to happen overnight and definitely have seen the issues with that.
I’m waiting, but I think it best to get these thoughts down.
The blog is missed, so this will have to do.
This is what I see as:
The Impossible Care Balance