Tag Archives: Money

The most democratical asset

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There’s something we all have. Each and every one of us, no matter where we live, our social status, skin color, or our finances. And that something is time. All of us, no matter how different our lives might be, share the same 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Or, how a good friend once told me, Beyonce’s day has also 24 hours, it’s all in how you use those hours.

And that was the point where I’ve clicked. I’ve never been an organized person, to begin with. My discipline was limited at Don’t miss the deadline. but I’ve never understood the people who got their whole days and weeks scheduled and planned. I mean… Why?

But one day came, and I discovered that behind all this is a simple answer, coming from another woman that’s dear to me: we need to be this organized because our minds are chaotic enough. And there it was, my simple, yet never really thought about it that way answer.

 Turning into an organized person is a whole journey. For me, at least. Personally, I wouldn’t be able to try and do this if I’d feel mentally unstable. Because it might be true that all of us have 24 hours every day, but what are we able to do with those hours is conditioned by a lot of factors.

Being diagnosed with a chronic illness or having mental health issues are two of the factors with the biggest impact on our time management. That’s why trying to become a better manager of your time in difficult times for your mental health will always fail.

And it’s not necessarily something about you. It’s about learning to cope with a condition that will impact everything: your priorities, your way, your pace of doing things, the way you manage your time, resources, and relationships. That’s why our journeys are so, so different, despite having the same amount of time.

It can be just as tough even if you’re not being affected by any medical condition, but you’re suffering because of instability. It might be caused by your job, or maybe your finances, your personal life, or even all at once. The main thing to be understood is that one can’t become an organized person in times dominated by uncertainty. And this has another reason that sounds so stupid that it’s actually true. Becoming an organized individual is a huge energy consumer. Huge. Especially if you’ve been used to roam around chaotically and get everything done, eventually.

This is something hitting me like…every two days. I look to my Excel sheet, I re-read the things I’ve said I’m going to do that day, and I’m just sitting there, like… No, I can’t do this. What on earth was on my mind when I got myself in it?

But then I just go, take a deep breath and do the things. Because I know how it used to be when I’ve lived in a chaotic loop. And maybe I can do better.

Because time is like money, it has to be budgeted. The big difference between the two is that not everyone has the same amount of money, but everyone has the same amount of time. Budgeting that universal amount of time, though, that’s a really personal job.

It’s personal because it takes a lot of discipline and will often force you to do uncomfortable things. Like going to bed earlier than you like to. But learning how to budget your time will also bring you good things. Like getting things done, the satisfaction that comes from getting those things done, and actual progress. Or like avoiding the burn-out. Because it won’t take you more than a week or two to test and see how many things you can put on your plate and keep them together. And knowing how much is too much for you is one of the most important things you need to know.

I know it’s this trend, to talk about self-care all over the Internet. And it is a really, really important thing, to take good care of yourself. But this is rarely all about taking long baths or buying pretty things. It is more about doing those uncomfortable things we keep postponing, even if we know those are the right things to do. Maybe being more careful with our money, or maybe our time. Organizing our wardrobe, or maybe eating cleaner. Going to sleep earlier, or maybe give up on that toxic job/environment we’re spending so much time on. But all these start with a small step, which often is called being honest with yourself. With the understanding of the fact that what we’ll do today will impact the person, we’ll be tomorrow. That you deserve a life with continuously high quality. And this is why, even though it is such a personal path to walk, you’ll never be able to walk it all alone. Getting yourself an accountability partner is the best thing you can do. Just make sure you trust that person and that their intentions on you aren’t evil. Because dealing with all the discomfort this kind of journey will bring isn’t easy. Not when you come from a place where you had to dive into the chaos to resist. But it is worth it, and getting to be in control when it comes to your time is a powerful move. It is self-love and self-care. And it totally is something you deserve to know how it feels like.

Stressed, depressed, well-dressed

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If it were to name a thing that makes life bitter, it was our ordinary perfectionism. Today is no wonder if you’re telling someone that you’re a perfectionist. The shock will be if you’re not. We’re taught from early in our lives to strive for perfection. To try to make things as good as we can, both in our personal and professional lives. To give our best day after day, so that, one day, everything will be perfect.

A perfectionist’s “career” begins early, in the family. From what I’ve noticed, the whole ride starts in school, with comparing grades. This is the most frequent way that kids learn they need to be as close to perfection as possible, to be loved. That’s how the self-doubt shows up, as a subtle inner voice asking the same question over and over again:             Is my best good enough?

And with that simple question, everything takes form. You begin to question your self-worth, your experience, your littlest decisions. But, above all, you begin to question your body, as your first attempts of building a social image appear.

I can’t even say that this is an exclusively feminine issue anymore if I have a second thought about all the men judged by their looks every day. We are, as nasty as it could sound, being judged by the way we look, dress and…pose. And this is more than visible on Social Media.

This is why we develop, from an earlier and earlier age, a sense of self-consciousness that is simply overwhelming. We are deeply aware of every little change that occurs in our bodies- a pimple, an extra pound, everything gets to be noticed and criticized by our childhood inner voice. And that voice is merciless.

But this is not the big deal. The big deal is the fact that we are getting into a vicious circle where nothing that we do or are is ever good enough for ourselves, in the first place, yet expect other people to show up and prove that we’re good enough for them. How messed up is this kind of reasoning?

It is, somehow, a mental health epidemics, where we are, all of us, trying to look as close as the mass media-served beauty ideals as possible. And this has a few bad, really bad side effects for our psychological well-being.

First of all, we tend to compare ourselves. Compare, compare, analyze, and then compare a bit more. And we’re never comparing ourselves to our equals. We compare with the augmented versions of the popular kids in our teenage years- the Social Media influencers, the celebrities, and generally the people who seem to have the perfect lives. Oh, our so beloved perfection, how damaging it is!

The aftermath of the comparisons is low, low, low self-esteem. Because let’s be honest about it, you will never win a mental battle between your current self, as imperfect as it is, and the thoughtfully crafted, long studied social images of these people. We compare ourselves with other people’s jobs, as they have some awesome teams behind those photos and stories that we’re comparing our bodies with, and they live by the money they make promoting different stuff and looking in a certain way. And this affects us in ways that we’re not even aware of.

After losing the game, we change the way we talk with ourselves and our self-perception. We become the toxic people we warn our friends about, but only when it comes to ourselves. We enhance the negative self-talk, we label ourselves as dumb, meh, not good enough, and the list could go on and on forever. We’re so accustomed to the negative labels, that we don’t even blink when we hear them from somebody else. What surprises us is the kind, flattering, polite type of discourse.

It is a common narrative, as one has to be, to be seen as successful, stressed, depressed, but well dressed. It doesn’t matter that much if you’re stressed and depressed if you don’t look like someone stressed and depressed. You have, and this is a silent prerogative, to look like your ideal version, not like your real one.

The fact that this kind of attitude has an impact on how humans perceive each other is no news. By now, it is well-known already that we judge the others in the very same ways that we’re judging ourselves. And that means forgetting the simple truth that there’s no such thing as two people with the same background.

It happened to me as well. Being a plus-size girl since literally forever made me understand better how self-talk and peer labeling interact. I’ve been called big, fat, obese, nasty, made compliments like It’s a shame of that beautiful face and I am proud of you for losing weight, as nobody thought you would. But, above all, I’ve never seen myself as a beautiful girl. Of course, there were things I liked about myself, like the lips, but the ones I was disliking outnumbered them effortlessly. Maybe that’s part of the reasons why now when someone tells me I look beautiful, or that I’m a good-looking woman, I tend to answer that Audrey Hepburn was a beautiful woman, and I, in my best days, am decent. But this came after a long time of hating my body and comparing myself with other women, that I’ve known for real or not.

Actually, this came when I got tired.  Because there comes a point in one’s life when you get tired of labeling yourself as good enough or not good enough, as proud or disappointed of who you are, depending on how close or how far you are from that ideal image. At first, you try to change it, you are revolted, and would do anything to fit in. You start to look more carefully in the wardrobe, see what good outfits you can mix. You become interested in makeup, and try to be more…like a girl, even if you feel uncomfortable at first. You’ll even try to diet, at a certain point.

And you will reach a point where your energy will be desperately needed elsewhere. Maybe it is the career, maybe it is emotional healing, it can be whatever. But, sooner or later, you’ll reach the point where the image displayed socially is no longer a priority.

From that point, things become easier not because you’ve become wiser, as it is not always the case, but because you became relaxed, and that’s a game-changer. When you relax and stop comparing and labeling everything around you, with the task journal in hand, eventually, ready to check some bullets, life becomes easier.

Maybe it has never actually been that complicated as the continuous race for the perfect social image made it appear. Maybe life was always an easy thing to understand, but we’ve made it become something complicated by adding useless ideas and questions to it.

I don’t know. I don’t have an answer to this. But the thing I know for sure is that you see life with brighter eyes when you’re aware of yourself for good. When you know and respect your limits, when you know and put in the spotlight your strong points.

Because, at the end of the day, it is all about the individual. Mental health is an individual set of actions, with a collective impact. There is no such thing as a healthy society formed by unhealthy individual and there’s no mentally healthy individual that keeps comparing itself with the other people day after day.

And, no, the perfect look is nothing achievable in nature, without interventions, so stop chasing illusions and enjoy your bodies, because that’s a bigger deal than living your life surrounded by an army which has as its only purpose to make you look good, regardless of what that good looks like that season. You’re more than just that, way more.