Managing Expectations

It’s been ages since I’ve written a blog post. It feels like my life’s been consumed by writing fiction these days and I pour all my attention into capturing the many emotions of the characters in my books and I don’t have the energy to articulate my own – I haven’t journaled in months.

Now, I know that many people aren’t writers. They don’t deal with exactly the same challenges that I do. But everyone goes through periods of time in their lives where they put off essential self care because we’re taught that we need to ‘hustle’. We need to give things our all, need to push, need to keep moving on to the next big thing.

Things can only hurtle along that way for so long. Eventually, you hit a snag and like any other runaway train, you get derailed and there are tons of un-fun fireworks.

Downtime helps. But there’s one little problem – breakdowns aren’t schedulable. Preventative maintenance is essential and I’m never going to be the one to say that you shouldn’t take that regularly scheduled downtime. But that doesn’t help with that unnerving feeling that time is slipping you by is you don’t have tangible proof that you’re progressing or achieving.

And you know what? Sometimes you won’t be progressing or achieving. That’s life. There are ups and downs, sidetracks and winding asides. If your life’s path is a stable one way road, I’d love to hear about it – because that idea’s completely unimaginable to me.

I’m going through a period when everything feels hugely difficult, even though I’m further along than I used to be and I have done it more easily in the past. I could beat myself up about that – I have beat myself up about it and babbled excuses to just about everyone. But I’m tired of that.

This is me accepting that I’m not making the best progress of my life right now. And that’s perfectly fine. Sabr. Have patience with yourself just as you do with everything else.

I’ve been running away from admitting that things are different. No, that’s not right. I’ve been running away from accepting that it’s okay for things to be different. And I know that I’m not the only one who does that. I know that there are other people out there who beat themselves up just like I have.

This is me telling you that you’re not alone in what you’re experiencing. This is me reminding you all just like I’ve had to keep reminding myself that life is filled with unpredictability and that we are never going to be entirely the masters of ourselves. We don’t have that power and we need to be kind to our bodies, to our souls, when they can’t fulfil all of the many demands we place on them.

It’s also really hard to admit that time isn’t in your control, that you’re at the mercy of One who is greater. It’s hard to let go and put our trust in Allah, but at the end of the day, we plan but Allah plans better than us all.

To end this off, a little question from me – those of you who’ve been here from the start or have taken a browse through the archives know that I used to use this space as a way to rant, come to an understanding… just make it my virtual diary, to be honest.

I don’t do that anymore for a variety of reasons but… did any of you like it? It’s very intimate to share unfiltered trains of thought like this and I’d love to know from you all how it comes across.