Greetings! It’s indeed 2019 isn’t it? I know what you’re thinking: “Healy, it’s almost February already; where in the heck have you been?”
Well, I’ve been tremendously sick.
I returned from my annual trip back home to China on the 12th all ready to get back into my regularly scheduled programming, but on that same day I caught the worse cold/mild flu I’ve had in many, many years. It felt hopelessly endless as I woke up everyday to the same wretched feeling, without any signs of improvement. It was one for the long haul and it’s not until this, the last week of January that I’ve finally shaken off the majority of the ills and feeling completely myself again.
Nothing like a proper span of being sick to have you realize you’ve been taking your good health for granted. The utter lack of energy to do absolutely anything; being crushingly tired just from the hours at work (I wasn’t going to take two weeks off from work after having already taken two weeks off prior for vacation); and not being able to get a wink of good sleep, compounded by the crushing jet-lag. It has not been the greatest of starts to my 2019 on our side of the Pacific.
A silver-lining to the prolonged cold was that it provided me with some precious perspective as I planned out how to tackle life in this new year. I think I’m going to try for less structure: work is work, nothing to change there, but outside of the job I shall try to be less stringent with my hobbies and tasks and to simply go with the flow.
The strict scheduling and timeliness was adding a level of stress I didn’t realize existed until I got sick this past two weeks and all of that structure got put away. An ideal came back into my purview: enjoyment. Having unceremoniously tossed away the burdens of needing to do this and that for the day, I found myself greatly enjoying the time spent just doing whatever came to mind. It’s not about skirting responsibilities, but rather not letting them consume me.
Work itself is stressful enough as is, no need for my time away from it be equally taxing. So that’s what I am going to focus on these next few months; some days I may indeed accomplish reading non-fiction for an hour, and other days I may not, and that’s completely okay. Being at peace and being in the present moment is what’s most important.
Nevertheless, the show must go on, and I’ve got tons of photographs from the China trip to sort through, and there’s also the matter of the GT3…
But this… does put a smile to my face.