I’ve tried to write this post several times already and had to get rid of it because it just sounds like the rantings of a whinging arsehole!!
Since last Friday I have had ‘man flu’ or whatever my wife wants to call it.
Whatever she calls it, it feels like an insult!
I ran myself into the ground, working too hard and doing 16-hour days because sometimes one hand doesn’t seem to know what the other hand is doing and I’ll be mentoring over here, clinical sessions over there,an academy slot over here then lecturing for someone else.
Predictably I hit the buffers last Friday night and have managed to wallow in self-pity ever since, until now (it’s Wednesday).
The most upsetting thing is I was supposed to be helping my friend Craig Wales (the Maxillofacial surgeon in Glasgow) today, speaking to his theatre teams but I had to cancel because I was so rotten.
If I go back through my diary of 10 years there is a cycle that goes on here, where I get into brilliant shape and a brilliant situation and then I break it by trying too hard and working too much and going too fast.
I go back to the diary, berate myself and say it’s not going to happen again. I promise myself a routine or structure where things will be perfect, even and steady.
I build back up from there to a position of strength and then smash it to bits again. I find myself writing the same stuff in my diary that I’ve written before.
I think the truth is more like this:
Whatever we try to do to move forwards is difficult.
However we try to manage ourselves and pretend that we will produce a system that is predictable, easy and straightforward is wrong.
Whatever myths we present to ourselves about how easy life should be are completely misguided.
It’s not supposed to be easy, it’s supposed to be difficult.
This week it felt difficult but that’s ok, there’s progress in difficult. I think I’ve used this quote before in the blog but it comes back to me time and time again these days:
“It doesn’t get easier, you just get faster” Greg Lemond
Blog Post Number: 1927