Are You Living or Just Existing?

Are you all about your career and neglecting the other areas of your life such as family and friends?

Are You Living or Just Existing?

Have you ever come home from work and not wanted to get out of your car, just sat in the driveway, stuck, unable to move? Ever been so exhausted the thought of bringing up the garbage can from the curb feels like a monumental task?

Somehow you push through and find the energy to get out of the car and go inside. Your non-work life awaits. Spouse, kids, pets, or maybe none of these things, it doesn’t really matter, it feels lonely no matter who or what is in your home.

You might try to make something for dinner, or just give up and snack on the closest and easiest thing you find in the cupboard, that is if you didn’t stop for takeout on the way home.

Later, glass of wine in hand, you head for the couch for an evening of binging on Netflix. You fall asleep in the middle of a show you weren’t really watching while you were mindlessly scrolling on your phone. You know your sleep will be ruined for that night but you were too tired to care in the moment you drifted off.

You tell yourself it will be different on your days off; you’ll sleep in and have the energy to actually do something and have some fun.

Except, you don’t. You never feel rested, the energy is just not there. You lay in bed for hours on your days off, scrolling the internet looking for happiness and connection.

This is “Just Existing”. Going from day to day and getting through the basic functions of life but there is no joy. One day blends into the next, the cycle continues day after day.

Friends, I have been there. I lived like that for more years than I want to count. The good news is I have been chipping away at this existence and finding solutions. My journey has been part medical, part environmental and part mental. I want to share what I have learned.

This blog post is part 1 of a series is about overcoming “just existing” and finding the joy in life.

Come find life with me!

Categories: : Burnout, Career Advice, Life Balance