Achieving Emotional Stability

Those that know me well know that I’ve had my ups and downs over previous decades – not depression, but I’ve had some emotional struggles at times. But it’s kind of struck me recently that actually, I feel like I’m achieving emotional stability.

What happened?

Having My Own Space

Holy cow, having my own flat, my own space – being able to do what I want to do, when I want to do it, is so refreshing.

I can play music when I want to, at the volume I want to, do the washing up the next day (or never because I have a dishwasher), I can have a whole fridge shelf of beer – literally I am in control of my living destiny, at least until I cannot afford my £1,437 mortgage for whatever reason.

Yet this is a recent thing, and I’ve been achieving emotional stability for some time now. Haven’t I?

Having A Career

Something else that changed drastically in fairly recent years was going from having jobs, to having a career – and the identity that this brings with it.

Being a software engineer, and a fairly decent one, means that I have something to work towards, both inside and outside of my working hours. The breadth of knowledge required to be a decent software engineer is astounding, and ever-growing, so this keeps me busy, keeps me motivated, and I guess keeps me stable.

When I was a credit controller and doing similar jobs, it was just drudgery. I was living for the weekend – my life revolved around the weekend, and the working week was just the pain I had to go through to be able to enjoy the weekends.

Having an actual career, and one that I’ve really needed to work/study hard for, has been transformational.

Having A Mission In Life

I guess I have multiple missions now.

Again, looking back to 10 years ago or so – I did have a mission of becoming a software engineer (web developer as we were known back then) but otherwise my life was fun at the weekend, but a bit void of meaning.

Yet now, I have the mission of being the best software engineer that I can possibly be, and a new mission of getting my flat into the perfect liveable shape that it can be, to fully match my personality.

But wait…there is something else. Something…yummy:

Being London’s number one roast dinner reviewer, and finding that 9.50 out of 10 roast dinner that must exist somewhere. I still love writing (hi), I love exploring London, I love trying to entertain people just a tiny bit, and hopefully in my weird way making tiny improvements to the enjoyment of people’s life.

And this is my true life mission – to find the best roast dinner in London. And possibly – the world.

It may sound daft…but so does running a marathon in my view. Yet running a marathon is a mission to achieve too. Life has many missions that you can choose.

Loneliness

Looking back 10-15 years, or more, my main goal was to have a girlfriend. I felt a loneliness, an incompleteness, and this very much contributed to not having emotional stability.

An inability to attract anyone used to depress me. Of course, I still have that inability, plus I’m older and have less teeth. But I’ve accepted it, long accepted it and concentrate on what I can be good at in life – plus I simply don’t have the time or interest to date anyone. I have far too much happening in my life already.

Losing Weight And Eating Healthily

Until recently, probably the main thing that would depress me would be being obese – I guess this is also connected to the previous point in being unattractive.

Yet, I’ve now lost weight – around 18kg since covid struck, oh hallowed be thy covid and the working from home possibilities.

I’ve also worked out what foods make me put on weight – cake/chocolate I try my hardest to avoid as actually they make me feel shit after the 10 minute’s of joy. Eating an unhealthy meal on a Monday, which is kind of comfort eating, actually makes me feel worse.

I really, really feel the difference both in physical and mental health if I don’t eat several portions of fruit and vegetables a day. Plus I swear vitamin D supplements in the 9 months of autumn keep me sane.

Achieving Emotional Stability…Achieved?

I’m not sure that what works for me can work for others, but I’d swear by having a mission (or missions) in life and healthy eating.

And who knows what the future brings…certainly life has the potential for throwing some curveballs that could derail me and my current emotional stability. Could I cope with a serious curveball? Not sure.

Lockdowns were pretty emotionally challenging, especially the last one. And I still have a few days where I’m miserable…it’s not like I’m over the moon with life every day.

But mostly, I feel emotionally stable enough to blog about it.

Long may it continue!