Rule #1: Never stop moving.
If you are already running, maybe you won’t notice when something starts to chase you.
I’ve always considered myself a busy person. In high school, I joined 16 extracurriculars, worked a part-time manager position and took college night classes. That hasn’t changed.
Now, I am studying for a double major and a minor, run social media for The Scout, compete and run PR for Bradley’s speech team, am a residential advisor and work an on-campus job.
I keep myself involved because I’ve never stopped before, and I’m scared of what could happen if I do.
Rule #1 is a mantra I keep at the front of my mind all the time. I repeat it to myself when I get tired. I like being occupied; I like being busy. Being busy is like breathing. To stop moving, to stop doing, means suffocating.
Boredom is the worst feeling in the world to me. It claws at my insides and eats me alive. On days that feel a little too slow, I sense it creeping up, getting ready to devour me.
Growing up with a mind that worked a little too fast meant a lot of thoughts I didn’t want racing through my head. I was, and still am, swallowed by concepts and ideas that convince me I am a bad person. Whatever I achieve, whatever goal I reach, doesn’t seem good enough. If I can reach it, I didn’t aim high enough.
My only defense is to pour everything I have into everything I can, to keep going until I can reach an impossible moving bar.
Rule #2: Sometimes Rule #1 is what kills you.
The problem is you can’t run forever. At some point, your legs will give out, and the air you took in so well while moving escapes from your lungs. You will eventually fall apart.
Sometimes surviving is running as fast as you can, but other times it’s letting yourself stop long enough to try and recuperate, even when it means being caught by whatever is chasing you.
I would drive my body into the ground if I could. I would work until I collapsed, and I like to think it would let me finally feel satisfied with myself.
But the bar I set isn’t reachable. It moves every time I look at it. I know this, I just don’t know how to stop. I’ve gone full speed my whole life and don’t know how to slow myself down.
Stopping just isn’t an option for me. Instead, I have to change why I’m running.
I don’t do the things I do just to keep busy; I genuinely love each and every activity I am in. I pour everything I have into what I do because I love to do it.
A lot of people ask me how I balance everything. My answer has always been that when you love something enough, you make it work. If that means I turn my capacity from 100% to 200% and fight every day of my life to keep it there, then I guess that’s what I have to do.
When my busyness becomes an enrichment of life, instead of a survival tool, existing feels a little less heavy.
I don’t think I’ll ever fully stop my twisting thoughts, and sometimes I do need to run from them; but now, there are times when I get to be the one doing the chasing.
So yes, the rule is to never stop moving. But you get to decide if you follow it to escape or to succeed.
