How I turned the worst year of my life into the best one yet, and how you can do it too
The story begins back in January 15, on my second last year of school. After feeling sick for a while, my parents decided to take me again to the hospital, for the 4th time in 2 months. It didn’t look like anything important, probably somewhat similar to a flu, but what bothered us is the relatively high frequency of each cycle. No one knew back then what was wrong with me. So my parents started investigating by themselves. They followed a long research, which concluded with a rare syndrome called PFAPA.
The results were taken to a specialist, and their expectations were right. As you might be learning on Google right now, it’s not a serious disease, and in most cases it is cured as time goes through. But it was severe enough to knock me down for a whole week each month. I was given some treatments, but none of them seemed to work in the long term.
Summer came by and I started to feel quite a lot better. Though I didn’t know yet what was to come. Last year of school arrived sooner than I expected -I assume that happens to all of us-, and the worst came along. As a sports lover, I was given the opportunity to play for a great football team here in my city, which made me quite happy. The school year started pretty well, school was demanding and I enjoyed that. Football requirements were high, and I also loved that. But it didn’t took long until my health started to complain about the high demands.
By the end of the first term I got really sick. Missed most of exams, and had an awful time at home, unable to perform simple tasks like doing my homework, going for a walk, or even moving from bed to the dining room. I was feeling exhausted, sore, and mentally depressed. My football team was wondering why I didn’t show up, my friends and teachers were very concerned about my school performance and my family worried about my health. What had been knocking me down for a week or so over the past few months took me down for more than 3 weeks.
The point of inflection.
It was clear to me that something had to change in order to be able to finish my last year of school and try to increase my life quality. First of all, we decided to try a new medicine that seemed to have some success in similar cases. We were told that the effect should be noticeable within 2 months of treatment. In the meanwhile, I had some time to figure out how to fix my life.
- Exams . I’m often told that I’m a perfectionist and nervous person. I strive to make the best out of me and give everything I can on anything I do. And that’s not always right. Most of the time, I found myself stressing too much days before exams or feeling unable to sleep because of the nerves. So my first labour was to try to relax when I studied, and not to worry so much about the results. It takes a lot of time and effort to accomplish, and I’m still learning how to perform best while calmed; however, it’s slowly starting to work.
- Sport . Playing for a serious team was another reason that kept me nervous and stressed. So the right move was to leave it. It was one of the most challenging decisions I had ever taken, and definitely one of the best. I thought that if I loved playing football, I could manage to meet with some friends each weekend and play without any pressure. ‘You won’t be fit if you leave football’, they said. And that got me really angry. You can be fit it you really want to. I’ve set myself the goal to get in better shape than I was when I left football.
- Learning . Tinkering had always been one of my passions as well. Designing, trying to launch small -and not so small projects-, building tiny Arduino bots… often helped me relax and focus on other things rather than just school and exams. But for the last two years, due to the lack of time and the higher demands I had almost forgotten about them.
- Enjoying my free time . Since my last grave cycle in December, I’ve watched over 100 movies and 10 seasons of different TV series (Entourage, Happy Endings, House of Cards…). While getting shit done feels like nothing else in this world, killing some free time never hurts.
What has changed
As for now, I’ve noticed a considerable decrease of intensity on each successive cycle, leaving me with little symptoms such as light head-aches, some tiredness, and little-to-no increase of body temperature. Compared to the last period, that’s a win!
On the other hand, I’m feeling much more active and cheerful than before. I wake up every morning motivated to go to class, meet with my colleagues and teachers and learn new things. And that’s reciproque, both friends and teachers have already noticed my now-uplifting character; which makes me even happier.
As for the afternoons, I now spend some time everyday trying to break frontiers and learn things that intrigue me. I also work out almost every day, spend some time on YouTube, and devote myself to gain experience in my recent hobby: drone racing! But that’s not all; whenever I find the time I also pursue some of my personal projects. Here are some details on each topic:
I’ve taken up new topics like electronics, coding, social-networking, product design, physics… and want to get back to learning Chinese. These are all hobbies that always generated some interest on me, although I felt insecure to start with. As a highlight, last Friday I took part on the regional qualifier for the Physics Olympics in Spain, wish me luck with the results! :)
Working out has become an important aspect of my life. While I still feel unable to perform well one week every month, it doesn’t take me long to get back to normality. Running, cycling, doing musculature or even going for a walk are some of my favorites. Small doses sum up for a fit lifestyle. Whenever I can, I still play some football, but forgotten are those semi-professional matches in which I had to give it all. Exercise for joy, not for necessity.
I’ve been really attracted to some YouTubers like Casey Neistat, Gary Vee, or Justin Escalona to name a few. They upload videos on a daily basis covering a wide variety of topics around their life. I’ve found it a decent source of inspiration and advice to improve my lifestyle. And it doesn’t cost you four hundred bucks per session.
Drone racing is now my most venerable passion. Having free time on the weekends has allowed to set up small circuits with a squad of friends and pilots -unknown for me until the last few months- every sunday, or even travel to participate in different races across the country. There’s already a looong list of events I’m really looking forward to this year. I encourage everyone to get their hands dirty on this hobby, you won’t be disappointed!
Traveling. Oh traveling. My endless love for visiting new places that has been growing with me throughout my life. Again, having more time has allowed me to visit new places I’ve never been able to visit before.
My diet. The last but not least relevant aspect of my lifestyle has also been tremendously modified. Attracted by the traditional African and Asian cuisine, I’ve left my comfort zone to try new foods and tastes from different countries and cultures. Although I still eat meat and typical Spanish food, I now love having sushi and couscous for lunch, thai soup for dinner and lots -literally, lots- of soy sauce. Smoothies, fruits and vegetables have also made their way to the top list of my favorites. And without doubt I can confirm you that food has also been an aspect that has highly increased my level of happiness. Bugs, well… they are still on the bucket list.
As you can see, much has changed in the past 3–4 months. It’s been a long journey, so far extremely worth. I hope to be able to keep exploring new aspects of my work-life balance in order to turn the worst year of my life into what will be for sure the best year ever.
Here’s for more to come.
PS: This article was written two years ago, but I found it could be inspiring to the Steemit community so I decided to share it here :)