For anyone that feels like they are stuck in a rut
I would say that I am quite an optimistic person naturally and I enjoy life as a whole; I am healthy and alive and life could be a lot worse. However, recently I have noticed that days have kind of been morphing into one long, strenuous day and time has become quite blurry. This has caused me to feel as if I’ve hit a dead end all of a sudden...of course, there are always moments between the haze that are much more uplifting, moments with friends and family that cut through the dreariness that life can bring but eventually the fun and games are over and it’s back to that Monday morning feeling. I guess you’re thinking “well, that’s just how life goes, you’re an adult” but repeating the same things day in and day out makes life feel like a total drag.
‘Rut - a settled and monotonous routine that is hard to escape”
Feeling like you’re stuck in a rut is an extremely frustrating feeling. It is a feeling that can go unnoticed for a long time, sometimes a lifetime, because it’s so easy to become utterly infatuated solely with our jobs, relationships or other aspects of our lives that we totally forget about what else is going on around us. Okay, my point here isn’t that I think we should all sack off our jobs and break up with our partners to become hippies in the woods somewhere or whatever, however I do believe that these parts of our lives can distract us from learning more about ourselves and can prevent us from discovering our deepest passions.
Humans are hardwired to have persistence which can sabotage our happiness when we are moving in what seems to be a repetitive, tedious direction. To get things moving forward, you may need to adjust how you think about change and your outlook on life as a whole. I am only 21 years old; I am at a weird stage in my life where I have just jumped from being a teenager to a “proper adult” and I am at an age where I feel totally overwhelmed and anxious about what is to come for me. I continuously put huge amounts of pressure on myself to earn enough money to pay my bills, eat, live, I feel like I have to plan out my future entirely so that I don’t end up just sat at home letting time slowly creep up on me. All of this is at the forefront of my mind. I spend so much precious time worrying about supporting myself and how the hell I’m going to do so...it is a lot to take in and, at times, draining to try and process. During this thought process, my day-to-day life has began to lack a sense of true meaning, of effort and reward. The fact is, our passions cannot always be rendered with a job description, and this can deter us from pursuing them.
Be curious. Allow yourself to identify and reconnect with whatever it is that gets you the most excited to be alive. For example, you’re passionate about writing? Write. Take a certain amount of time out everyday to write about whatever it is that you want to write about. Start a routine, and as soon as you have disciplined yourself to do so, start investing your energy and time into it with NO excuses. Everyone must work to live, but constantly making excuses to not do what you enjoy because you’re “too busy” or “too tired” will keep you stuck in this rut you’re in. Start taking charge of yourself and making changes in your habits, no one else can do it for you. Leave your comfort zone, push yourself out of the norm and remind yourself that life is constantly changing, priorities change, people change and with that, you just have to move forward.
Sure, it’s so easy to get comfortable in life when you’re stuck in a rut - you’re unlikely to get hurt within your comfort zone and your expectations are likely to be in line with what goes on around you so you’re not disappointed. It feels safe and can be comforting for the most part but it is not where the magic happens. Fear stops people from doing so many things. Trying new skills can be nerve wracking and meeting new people can be daunting but I think that if you can park your nervousness to one side, more often than not you will be pleasantly surprised with how things will turn out and how warm people can actually be.
It’s time to be completely and utterly honest with yourself. Are you really living life to your full potential? Are you genuinely happy with the routine that you are in? Is this the direction you want your life to follow? If you have found yourself relating to the points I have raised in this post, the answer is most probably no.
So what should you do? Well, you’re not going to have everything worked out overnight but my advice would be to start listening to your own voice by detaching from every other voice out there - the voices that tell us how we should live and feel, what we need to do, what is the “correct” way to live life. We are bombarded with messages about what we need to live in order to be successful, how we are supposed to eventually settle down with our own families, how we must have respectable jobs...blah blah blah. How are we supposed to hear our own truths through the chatter of other people’s?
Be authentic and remain true to yourself whilst settling time aside your normal routine so that you can peacefully carry out the things that bring you purpose and pleasure. Time will keep on going, circumstances change and life can take the most unexpected turns so don’t get too caught up in the struggles of every day life because you’ll find yourself drowning in anxieties that won’t even matter in years to come. Make your life more than average, make it memorable.
“Be fearless in the pursuit of what sets your soul on fire”
‘Rut - a settled and monotonous routine that is hard to escape”
Feeling like you’re stuck in a rut is an extremely frustrating feeling. It is a feeling that can go unnoticed for a long time, sometimes a lifetime, because it’s so easy to become utterly infatuated solely with our jobs, relationships or other aspects of our lives that we totally forget about what else is going on around us. Okay, my point here isn’t that I think we should all sack off our jobs and break up with our partners to become hippies in the woods somewhere or whatever, however I do believe that these parts of our lives can distract us from learning more about ourselves and can prevent us from discovering our deepest passions.
Humans are hardwired to have persistence which can sabotage our happiness when we are moving in what seems to be a repetitive, tedious direction. To get things moving forward, you may need to adjust how you think about change and your outlook on life as a whole. I am only 21 years old; I am at a weird stage in my life where I have just jumped from being a teenager to a “proper adult” and I am at an age where I feel totally overwhelmed and anxious about what is to come for me. I continuously put huge amounts of pressure on myself to earn enough money to pay my bills, eat, live, I feel like I have to plan out my future entirely so that I don’t end up just sat at home letting time slowly creep up on me. All of this is at the forefront of my mind. I spend so much precious time worrying about supporting myself and how the hell I’m going to do so...it is a lot to take in and, at times, draining to try and process. During this thought process, my day-to-day life has began to lack a sense of true meaning, of effort and reward. The fact is, our passions cannot always be rendered with a job description, and this can deter us from pursuing them.
Be curious. Allow yourself to identify and reconnect with whatever it is that gets you the most excited to be alive. For example, you’re passionate about writing? Write. Take a certain amount of time out everyday to write about whatever it is that you want to write about. Start a routine, and as soon as you have disciplined yourself to do so, start investing your energy and time into it with NO excuses. Everyone must work to live, but constantly making excuses to not do what you enjoy because you’re “too busy” or “too tired” will keep you stuck in this rut you’re in. Start taking charge of yourself and making changes in your habits, no one else can do it for you. Leave your comfort zone, push yourself out of the norm and remind yourself that life is constantly changing, priorities change, people change and with that, you just have to move forward.
Sure, it’s so easy to get comfortable in life when you’re stuck in a rut - you’re unlikely to get hurt within your comfort zone and your expectations are likely to be in line with what goes on around you so you’re not disappointed. It feels safe and can be comforting for the most part but it is not where the magic happens. Fear stops people from doing so many things. Trying new skills can be nerve wracking and meeting new people can be daunting but I think that if you can park your nervousness to one side, more often than not you will be pleasantly surprised with how things will turn out and how warm people can actually be.
It’s time to be completely and utterly honest with yourself. Are you really living life to your full potential? Are you genuinely happy with the routine that you are in? Is this the direction you want your life to follow? If you have found yourself relating to the points I have raised in this post, the answer is most probably no.
So what should you do? Well, you’re not going to have everything worked out overnight but my advice would be to start listening to your own voice by detaching from every other voice out there - the voices that tell us how we should live and feel, what we need to do, what is the “correct” way to live life. We are bombarded with messages about what we need to live in order to be successful, how we are supposed to eventually settle down with our own families, how we must have respectable jobs...blah blah blah. How are we supposed to hear our own truths through the chatter of other people’s?
Be authentic and remain true to yourself whilst settling time aside your normal routine so that you can peacefully carry out the things that bring you purpose and pleasure. Time will keep on going, circumstances change and life can take the most unexpected turns so don’t get too caught up in the struggles of every day life because you’ll find yourself drowning in anxieties that won’t even matter in years to come. Make your life more than average, make it memorable.
“Be fearless in the pursuit of what sets your soul on fire”
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