Laziness

How do I draw a line between protecting my mental health and being downright lazy? This is something I’ve indirectly wondered about for a long time, but now I think it’s high time I addressed it directly.

I constantly ask myself, am I doing enough? The answer is, I’m not.

Here’s where the conflict arises: For me, growth can only occur when I put myself in alien situations that force me to think on my toes. At the same time, the process of getting into these alien situations is so anxiety-wracking and terrifying to me that I often succumb into a shell.

Nietszche, Jung and Peterson all talk about fulfilling the potential within you. They’re all advocates for people to keep going, despite their anxieties and fears. Because according to them, the path of absolute anxiety and nerves is the path to self-fulfillment and growth.

I agree.

At the same time, I live in an age where there are some people who advocate taking things slow, at your own pace. They advocate putting your sense of peace over a situation that causes turmoil and anxiety. According to them, it is alright for a person to just ‘exist’ if they don’t feel productive.

The thing is, I don’t agree.

But the fear of being in a completely foreign situation scares the hell out of me. Uncertainty scares the hell out of me. Risks scare the hell out of me.

Some of the most amazing things I’ve done have involved all the aforementioned three things. Yet, I hesitate.

And it’s not because I don’t think I’m not capable of achieving or performing in anything that I choose, because I know for a fact I have the potential for growth in the matters I pursue.

It’s just a self-limiting, self-defeating belief that letting go of the past me will lead to a loss that I will be unable to recover from. Objectively, I know that this is a lie because what’s to be gained exceeds leaps and bounds from the things I could lose.

And even if I lose some parts of myself, who cares? That’s the point, isn’t it? Constantly evolving and moulding yourself into the person you want to be (or rather, were meant to become).

I think I’ve been labelling it as just general anxiety for way too long. It’s not. It’s targetted fear. Labelling it as anxiety is just an excuse and I’m calling myself out on it.

I’ve given up so many amazing opportunities to be a part of truly brilliant communities or projects. I’ve resisted friends’ and significant others’ efforts to show me that I can be so much better. I’ve resisted simply because of the fear, not because I feel that I’m in a place where I can no longer improve. I’ve given up things that I know would make me truly happy because I was waiting for someone to hold my hand and walk the path with me. It’s time to realise that no one can walk the path of my own self-growth with me.

And that’s the dilemma. My mind badgers me with questions: How can I do it? Will I be able to? Why can’t I have a friend just come with me, to support me? What if I lose something important in the process?

These questions terrify me. They make me unwilling to pursue this threatening, scary thing that could possibly be the best thing I’ve ever done. They make me lazy.

And this laziness translates to me breaking down, angry at myself about being so unproductive when I have so much untapped potential. It makes me sad that I can’t get up and actually do any of these things.

I watch videos about the teachings of the three philosphers I spoke about. I know I could do it, everything they talk about, I could do it. But I hold myself back. It’s not someone else physically dragging me into a pit. It’s just me doing it to myself. And that, further pushes me into a spiral of misery and self-pity that grows every time.

That’s it, then. How do I draw this line between laziness and protection of one’s own mental balance? Is there a way?

I honestly don’t know. Right now, I just know that I want to stop being that lazy, pitiful version of myself because I know that that’s not my true form. Instead, I want to be a bustle of activity, constantly thriving in the face of the million things she’s involved in.

That’s what I want.