Let me you a give low-down of what’s happened in my life this week:

• I had two 3.15am wakeups for work, with limited broken sleep both nights prior.
• I consumed six shots of coffee in one day (sporadically).
• I ate the biggest Caesar salad I’ve ever seen in my life (all of it) and spent four hours feeling like I was going to vomit.
• Two of my friends finished up at my place of employ. One to work in her chosen career field and the other to push another baby out of her vagina. Selfish.
• I had about five different people, per day, comment on how tired and sick I looked. #standard
• I’ve spent many hours feeling like a zombie who is jet-lagged (hence the sick and tired comments).
• I got a pedicure for the first time in three months and the man who did it just kept shaking his head and tutting under his breath.
• I have two ulcers developing in my mouth and swollen glands. Mmm delicious.
• I teared up when a sock fell out of a basket of washing I had on the table. #noteventired

In addition to that small list, I have had a twitch above my left eye for almost two weeks now. Like any normal person I Googled “twitch above left eye” and found that it could be a sign of Tourette’s or Bell’s palsy. Not ideal.

As I scrolled further through my search results, I realised the most likely causes of said twitch are a) stress and b) tiredness (no surprises there). To fix the problem I need to rest my eyes when possible and stay away from computer screens and caffeine. Considering that I work full-time in an office at a computer, get up early most days and write on a laptop in my spare time, I’d say the likeliness of any of that happening anytime soon is slim to motherfucking none. So … Imma basically bitch about that until it magically disappears on its own. Naturally.

I sound like the epitome of health and have no one to blame but myself.

Apart from my friends leaving (I swear that wasn’t my doing), everything else on that list was caused by my own behaviour. I may be eating relatively well and training, but I have not been looking after myself holistically. And I’m not proud of that. So many of us seem to be busy, stressed, strung-out, over-worked and often, we carry a certain pride with those labels. Why? Because it makes us seem important? Because that’s just how life is supposed to be?

I call bullshit.

It is not a good thing to be so fucking tired that you get dizzy at work, get ulcers in your mouth and have to keep eating to stay awake. Short of you having small children taking up every aspect of your life, or insomnia, there is no excuse to be running yourself into the ground.

Saying no, changing your mind or changing priorities to make yourself healthier and give your life more balance, does not mean that you have somehow failed. I remembered that thanks to a good friend at work, who was scolding me in the kitchen as I tried to stifle yawns. She also asked me what my mother would say if she knew how little sleep I’d been having and how much I’d been working. My response was “my mother would probably kill me for being so stupid”. And that, ladies and gents, is almost certainly true (and enough of a reminder for me to re-assess what I am doing).

Let me be clear: no one held a gun to my head and forced me to work more this week. No one made me go out with friends on Saturday. No one told me I had to stay back at work. I went out last weekend, took on extra shifts, stayed back at my day job – all by my own choosing. And I thought I’d be able to cope with it all. Turns out, I’m not someone who can run on coffee and little sleep for longer than a few days ¯_(ツ)_/¯

When life seems to be getting stressful or too much, please remember that you have the power to take control of it.

You control how you react to situations, you have the ability to speak up if you want something to change – we have the ability to do the things we want to do. We always have a choice. So often we get so caught up in the little things in life that we forget the bigger picture. If you are reading this post on a computer, phone, iPad in the comfort of your home, with the freedom to make your own choices – you are ahead of a bajillion other people. You drew a lucky card in life, whether you believe in luck or not.

I’m not a motivational speaker, obviously.

But I am someone who has had an epiphany about finding more balance in life and I felt the need to share that with anyone who might read this, so you can also try and find a bit more balance. Right now, Imma go have dinner and catch-up on Survivor with Josh, who has somehow not lost his shit at me, even though I have basically been a zombie with PMS all week.

Han x