After a few weeks of dealing with lots of different pressures (one more semester and hopefully I’m degreed again!) and missing two Sundays with no blogging I thought the best thing to do would be to stop blogging for a while. But after my sense of reasoning returned and I had a day of rest (apparently this is good enough) I realised that there is something calming about putting words to paper and the best way to deal with pressure is to keep with routines.

Following on from a previous blog one of the things I enjoy is reading and even though I do not see myself as a lover of poetry every now and then I come across a poet whose words speak to me. One of these poets is Rumi. The journey to discovering the correct translations, books, words and his real story is an adventure altogether and is possibly why I find his writing so intriguing.

One of the more recent poems I read of his is the following:

“There is a life-force within your soul, seek that life.
There is a gem in the mountain of your body, seek that
mine.
O traveler, if you are in search of That
Don’t look outside, look inside yourself and seek That”

I realised that this was exactly why I started my blogs and what brought me on this journey. I was constantly searching for my passion in the world; that one thing that would make me tick and drive me to reach my fullest potential and maybe I was going about this all wrong. Maybe the answer is not out there in the world but is in me.

There is this constant want in me to make others happy and ensure that those around me are living life to their fullest and this sometimes makes me forget what makes me live to my fullest and what drives me.

In trying to keep everyone content while we ourselves may not be content forces us to create unnecessary stress and we eventually begin to act out of character. The other problem is that everything catches up and if not dealt with can cause chaos. If you are a rational, logical person who tends to be more unemotional than emotional two or three days of this type of stress can make you erratic. There is a lack of control and without being able to fall back on rational thinking the easiest thing to do is to shut down or shut off the world. This is easier said than done when the world refuses to be switched off or the world refuses to stay out.

The next best thing to do is to fight your way back – not physically. But mentally and most probably emotionally. You have to pull yourself towards yourself and bring yourself back to the rational, logical thinking you’re used to. How? The only way I know is to get to the point where I’m more tired of being emotional (which luckily? does not last more than a few days) and I force myself to believe that nobody else can solve whatever stress or pressure I am dealing with other than myself.

I may not have all the answers but what I do know is that we never have one question to answer at a time but several. And we can only tackle them one at a time so take a deep breath and remember “Don’t look outside, look inside yourself and seek That.”

P.S. See you next Sunday.