Why do we all feel the need to overachieve? We push ourselves so hard and miss out on so many parts of our life. I went through nursing school when my kids were very young and now I look back and see how much I missed. But, I was doing it for the good of my family. I was doing it so that I could give them a better life.
Now, I am in grad school, striving to be a nurse practitioner. It doesn't matter that I'm not well enough to work now. I have hopes that I will be, eventually. Still, I have bulldozed my way through school while I was sick. I have held on, with a 3.5 gpa I might add, through 4 terms and 2 major surgeries. I know that I'll need my brain surgery, the decompression, soon because I am getting worse. I am completely torn about taking a break from school for it. Why? Why would I not automatically put myself and my health before my education?
Lets list some reasons.
I feel like I am a failure. I feel like a quitter. I feel like I'm letting people down. I feel like people will see how weak I am. I feel like I have to prove myself. I feel like a lazy bum.
Does any of that make sense? No. My logical brain knows that it doesn't. Yet, those are the hang-ups that I have. And, I bet a lot of people know what I'm talking about. I bet a lot of people push just as hard as I do. So why do we do it? Why do we have to be the best? Why do our kids have to be the best? Why do we expect perfection today?
I've got to try and learn to take care of me first, family second and then school. Time to figure out and apply my priorities.
Oh how I can sympathize with you Jamie!! Why is it so hard to put ourselves first!? Is it an EDS thing? Is that why we are in as bad a shape as we are now??
ReplyDeleteI don't know, Scarlett. I think that we certainly contribute to our own decline, sometimes.
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