The past week has been pretty harrowing. Work was miserable, then I got fired. Now I’m actually feeling pretty good, oddly enough.

I think I’ve never really had a big failure in my life before. Facing this one has been—dare I say, transformative? The reasons for my removal are fair. They really are. I could also list external forces that lead me to this failure—and those would also be fair—but I don’t want to make excuses or tell myself I am not accountable. Me from a year ago, hell even a month ago would be mortified to face that truth.

Coming up to this point was among the most stressful periods in my life. Now that it’s come and passed, I’m really ok with it. I’m not going to flounder in sorrow or beat myself up more than I already have. I’m really just interested in learning from my mistakes and moving forward. I’m way more forward thinking, positive and happy than I ought to have the right to be right now. I’m also cool with that.

I’ve also let work-life balance slip away from me big time. I was absolutely crumbling under the stress there. More than I realized. That’s also something that’s been following me around in life and work for a while now. I’ve been excessively negative for ages.

I’ve been trying to understand why it’s so hard for me to avoid burnout. My conclusion for now echos kleinbl00‘s sentiments in this post. I try too hard to find fulfillment in my work even though I know it’s not what’s really important to me. Then I get too invested, burnt out and miserable.

Right now I’m fine though. I fell like things have suddenly clicked. Like I’ve hit the bottom of the U-curve and it’s all up from here. And there’s so much to do in day-to-day life, holy crap. I mean, it’s only been a couple days, but little chores, self improvement, social time, projects... I make lists of things to to and can barely cover them. All these things that were getting neglected when I spent 60 hours at work a well plus another 10 sitting in LA traffic. I’ve been a busy body and there’s still so much to do.

So yeah, I guess that’s where I’ve been at. Growing.