Merry belated Christmas! How have the Holidays treated you? I spent mine playing lots of games, eating lots of food and catching up with my friends at home. At the moment, I am preparing to fly back to the UK where a lot remains to be tackled: revision, master and internship applications, my job, this very blog and essentially hitting the ground running with my life! With this post, I am actually planning to talk a little bit about all of these things, while sharing why holidays are particularly stressful for me.
Yes, it might surprise you! I stressed out a lot these past few days, and that is because I am a workaholic. In case you’re not familiar with the term, a workaholic is someone who feels compelled to do their work, and often does it compulsively. Workaholics usually feel the urge to be busy all the time, and also tend to commit to a lot more tasks than they can carry out with the resources they have.
After careful self-reflection, I would say I’m a special breed of workaholic. I consider myself to be quite productive, and I don’t struggle with organising or wrapping up projects, or working with others. My desire to work a lot doesn’t distract me from the end goal of what I’m doing, and I never sacrifice the quality of my work for the surplus time I’d like to spend doing it.
But other than that, I am a workaholic. I can’t stand not being busy, and I feel guilty when I don’t do work.
This is a major reason why I never quite enjoy the Holidays season: because it’s a holiday and nobody else is working, I’m not working either. While taking this break from work, though, I start feeling very guilty for not using my time productively. Then, once this break is over, I have trouble getting back into the rhythm of doing work (due to my issues with procrastination). Essentially, the Holidays throw me off track and put a strain on my ability to produce work and get on with the tasks I’ve got to complete.
Breaks are very useful for increased productivity, and that’s something even I preach a lot! But I’ve got to confess that I don’t think I know how to take a break. I’m not sure what a break is supposed to entail in order for me to make sure that I relax and I get back to work in due time.
Some would say, practise a hobby! That has become a thin line for me since I started this blog and published my book. Creative writing used to be my main hobby until I started doing it professionally. Now if I am to try and write something unrelated to my projects, my mind will inadvertently take me back to my work mindset: ‘Is this piece worth publishing? How can I make it better? How can I turn it into a long-term project?’, and so on and so forth. At no point has writing lost its charm for me – I feel that I’m unable to think of it as a hobby anymore, though.
With movies, TV series or video games, it’s a polar opposite to my experience with writing: I immerse myself too much in these, and I can’t bring myself to put an end to my break. I already explored this in my post about the relationship between mental health and gaming but come to think of it, I deal with the exact same situation whenever I tune in to Netflix to watch a TV show I really like. Binging is my guilty pleasure, and my desire to go back to work recedes with every episode watched and every quest completed.
As far as going out with people is concerned, this helps me unwind to a point. I’m an introvert, so I recover my energy in solitude rather than in the presence of others. Being out and about with my friends is enjoyable, indeed, but it also drains my energy like nothing else. I have to be alone to rest, but as a student I don’t have much of a chance to do that! I interact with so many people on a daily basis, especially during my so-called ‘breaks’.
That’s another thing I don’t really enjoy about Holidays: having to be around people for so long. It is during the winter holidays that I spend time with my family and my friends who’ve just come home, and among all the reunions and the family dinners, I feel very out of touch with the usual work routine I respect at uni.
Don’t get me wrong! I love spending time with people from home and catching up is fun and enjoyable, but I discovered that my time away from home, spent building my own routine and habits, has left little to no space to the usual demands I would get from people in my life while I was living in Romania. So when I bring this entire Tanya-at-uni package over at home, the puzzle pieces don’t exactly fit in.
Because we’re on holiday, my parents expect me to wake up a bit later than usually – but I am a morning person. I can’t even write a to-do list – it is hard to fit tasks around set-in-stone family meals and outings with my friends. I would be in the middle of working on something when a friend texts to tell me they’re on their way to pick me up, but we haven’t had any plans together to begin with. It might be a selfish thing to say, but people from home don’t seem to understand my way of doing things, which is more than anything, reflected in the way I work.
Last but not least, I blame my frustration with the Holidays season on my inability to partake in the Christmas spirit. I am just not a Christmas person, okay? Christmas has always been celebrated in my family, but nothing about the way we’ve done it turned me off; I would say it is the wider culture around the way Christmas is celebrated that doesn’t make much sense to me.
I love family time and presents as much as the next person, but I’d rather have them spread throughout the year than cumulated in one single day. Because of my needs as an introvert and as a workaholic, I would rather spend time with those dear to me in perfect balance with the work that I do. I feel as though with Christmas, if you don’t spend ages picking out presents, cooking ginormous dinners and spending hours talking to family, you’re not doing it right. And because I envision a different kind of Christmas from everyone else, I struggle to enjoy the Christmas that I have right now.
Final warning: I am not a Grinch! Christmas this year has been amazing, although it’s taken its toll on my mental health. I do hope those of you who might relate will feel a bit less alone in the non-traditional views they hold of the Holidays season. I wanted to write this post because I know I’m not the only one who feels like this.
Please, do share how Christmas has been for you and what your plans for New Year’s Eve are! I’m looking forward to reading your thoughts in the comments section below!
Activity will resume on the blog on the 2nd of January, so tune in next for a brand new post (cheeky spoiler: an exciting new project is on the way!) So, see you in 2019!
X