Last night I passed out from a combination of exhaustion and body aches. I noticed that I’ve had this happen to me a couple of times in the past week. I’m pretty sure I know what the cause is; I’m overworking myself. I’m one of those people that thrives under pressure and gets bored when not busy. After waking up at 2am (since I went to sleep earlier than normal) and staying up for several hours thinking about the direction of where life is taking me, I realized that I’m not happy with it. Yes, I always wanted to work from home and be able to reach financial freedom someday, but not to the point of exhaustion. And certainly not to the point where my role as a wife and mother are neglected because I’m too busy chasing goals that are not worth sacrificing so much for. We didn’t even take any time off this summer because I was so busy with work and the kids had several activities going on.
I envy carefree parents that do things on a whim and go on a family adventure without thinking twice. I want that. I NEED that. I know realistically I have responsibilities and so does my husband. However, it doesn’t mean I have to be a slave to my business or the busyness of chasing the “American dream”. I just want to enjoy days where I can hang out with my husband and have meaningful conversations. Or spend one on one time with my kids and truly listen to them, not just have the superficial small talk that happens when we don’t have time. I don’t want my mind to be so cluttered with mental to-do lists that I fail to recognize the dreams God has for our family. I don’t want busy. I want to enjoy simple everyday life. The small things.
Yes, it would awesome to be debt-free someday and I would love to have a nice chunk of change saved for retirement. But not because I’m working myself sick. Going forward I’ll be making some drastic changes in my business which will include phasing out the virtual assistant side of things. My husband is also on board and plans to cut back on his weekend hours. It’s a bit scary and not an easy decision for us, but we have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Life is too short. I don’t want to ever look back and regret the decisions I’ve made. I don’t want the short time that my children have in our home to be wasted shuffling them from one activity to another. I don’t want to spend my weekends working on building someone else’s dream while mine just sits there slowly fading. I don’t want my kids to think that this is the best life has to offer; work hard to pay for things you won’t even have time to enjoy. I want them to take the time to enjoy the little things in life and know that they are blessed for simply being a part of this Earth. That financial wealth may be attainable, but it will never satisfy their soul.
I know I’ve rambled a bit, but if you notice that I’m not posting on social media several times a day (I’ve already started cutting back on this greatly) or that I’m not responding to a message immediately please don’t take offense to it, it’s not personal. 🙂 I hope that you also take the time to assess where you are in your life right now. Are you doing what you truly love? Or are you too busy to even know what that is? Yes, it’s great to work hard towards our goals and even better when it will propel us towards our dreams. However, at what cost? Is it worth it? Time is something you won’t ever get back, so please use it wisely.
This is such an important post Jesenia. It’s so easy for us to get sucked into endless activity that we think will help us achieve our goals when actually all it is doing is taking us away from what matters most in our lives. I took a complete break from blogging over the summer and feel so much energised for doing so.
Hi Alice! It truly is! I’ve been more intentional about how I spend my time because I didn’t like how much workaholic nature was slowly taking over. I’m sure your blogging break had to be amazing. Thanks for stopping by 🙂
You are so amazing Jesenia! Thank you for your beautiful inspiration! This post resonated so much with and reminded me of how to not let the social media drain rule over me. THANK YOU. 🙂
I applaud you for making this hard decision. I went through a bit of a mommy identity crisis this year also trying to figure out my priorities. It’s hard to let go of the career motivated dreamer which manifests itself in different ways even when we are “staying home”. But we can always harness that motivation and energy for our families. It’s a hard realization I came too as well. I also cut down on social media, posting, and the home business I was pursuing. I believe God provides and always gives us a way as long as we serve Him. Wishing you the best!