I've always struggled with where the source of my personal happiness comes from. Unhealthily, for most of my life I took it from external sources. Doing well at school, excelling in sport, being praised by my peers. When you're doing well you're on top of the world, but it makes setbacks brutal. Your core worth is challenged.
This also means my levels of stress heavily correlate to the fear I have of failure. This is something I've been working on for a while, and comparatively to my time at university I have improved greatly. There's still times I feel like I'm sprinting along the hedonic treadmill, maximising the pressure I can put myself under to try and keep striving for that feeling of inner acceptance that comes with success. Never feeling like you're at the place you want to be is torturous; it puts pressure on your relationships, friendships, and the ways you express yourself. It also hides your true emotions from those that you care about. I have displayed a facade to meet expectations in high tension periods, and speaking from experience - it's a job in of itself.
Last week there was a major incident at work, and I wanted to write this post to take a moment to appreciate how I handled it - because I know if the same thing would have happened 10 years ago I would have been crushed. Yet, I picked myself up, acknowledged the mistakes I made, and after a period of venting/lifting was able to reason with the views of the others involved.
However, the thing I'm most appreciative for was the support network that I have in place. Cycling across London after playing board games on Saturday with some of my closest friends, I felt emotional; not from sadness, or guilt, but from a genuine love for them and the joy they bring to my life. What struck me was that, for the first time in a long time, my sense of worth came less from how I had performed at work and more from the fact that these people choose to be in my corner.
Sometimes it takes these setbacks to make me realise what I'm grateful for. And there is a lot. Pressure is good, but it can also cause cracks. I'm going to take the time to focus on repairing what's been damaged, and continue to be happy for knowing those who are willing to help.