I Could Handle It, It Was No Big Deal
One day in mid 2022 I was working late through the night and into the early morning. Working those hours had actually become pretty common. I was working fully remote due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Not one, but two construction sites had setup next to my apartment. Both of them had been active Mon-Sat, every day, and all day, since I was first sent to work from home nearly two years earlier. My work through the day had become less productive. It was just too hard for me to concentrate on coding with the sometimes painfully loud noise and constant vibrations from the construction. But I wasn’t going to let that affect the quality or volume of my output. Instead, I continued working when things quieted down. I was certainly still working slower than usual. I was tired. Really tired. None the less I was managing quality results once it was quiet enough to focus. I just didn’t get much sleep. That was a bad pattern to get into.
It wasn’t the only bad pattern I’d gotten into. Since I was working remotely, there was no need to walk to the office. There was no need to do much walking at all. Not exercising saved time that I could use for work. I started ordering a lot more takeout too. Not cooking saved time as well, time that I could use for work.
I knew these were all bad patterns. But I’d coped for nearly two years, and I knew the construction would end eventually. I could handle it. I stood up from my computer to stretch, but I immediately felt faint and passed out. It wasn’t the first time this happened. This was a bad pattern too. But I had reasoned that this was natural, just something that happened from time to time as a consequence of such little sleep. I could handle it, it was no big deal. I’d get the nap that fainting was forcing upon me, and make up the time once I was awake again.
It Was a Big Deal, I Needed Help
I woke up a few hours later. But something wasn’t right. My balance was off, I was having trouble staying coordinated. It was still early morning, still quiet, yet I couldn’t keep my thoughts focused. I was having disorienting lapses in memory. Seems all those bad patterns had caught up with me. I didn’t handle it this time. It was a big deal.
How do I develop software if I can’t keep my thoughts and memories straight? Well, I couldn’t. At least not to any degree of quality that I was comfortable with. I arranged for an urgent week of vacation time. But a bit of time off didn’t help, instead I got worse, soon breaking out in large itchy hives. I needed help.
Of course I was in touch with my doctor, but there was no clear diagnosis. All that was certain is that a bit of time off wasn’t going to fix this. I reached out to my friends and colleagues. Thanks to their help I was able to get my current projects handed off, and was able to resign from my beloved job on the best of terms. I reached out to family. With their help I moved out of my apartment and got relocated to a more peaceful environment.
The life lesson here is always try to be kind to those around you, especially your friends and family, your colleagues, your doctor, all of those closest to you. Help them if they need it, because one day you may need their help too. I am so very lucky and thankful that I had the help of many when I needed it. Oh, and pay attention to your health too. I still think it is fine to push the limits. But one must do so in moderation, otherwise you’re going to be tempting fate.
Meditation, Really?
Moving away from the construction, getting some sleep, getting more exercise, and eating some home cooked food again. A few months of that, for the most part, is all that it took to fix the physical. The hives went away and I regained my physical coordination. But I still needed to work on getting my thoughts, memories, and focus back.
I was reasonably functional in general, just not as a software developer. My brain didn’t want to cooperate. I was still having lapses in memory, my thoughts were still fragmented, I couldn’t maintain focus. A very dear friend suggested meditation. I admit that I was skeptical. Meditation, really? It sounded a bit cheesy. But I had plenty of free time, and no better ideas, so it was worth a shot.
I soon learned that, at least for me, getting into a meditative state is hard. It takes a lot of trying, patience, and then more trying and more patience. But I eventually got there; I’d reached a meditative state. What I found in that state was even harder to bear. Very hard. I could focus my memory there, but I could also see very old long forgotten memories, traumatic childhood ones I had subconsciously suppressed and now painfully revisited. I could see the recent bad patterns that got me here too, and many other ones that I hadn’t previously realized existed. My friend was right, meditation felt almost like magic. It was hard, it was painful, but it gave me the ability to start reprogramming myself.
Challenge Accepted
So, you see, I had tempted fate by allowing my health to decline past the limit. Fate responded by throwing down the gauntlet. Actually it slapped me across the face with it, knocked me to the ground, and then threw it down beside me. Fine. Challenge accepted!
This was the catalyst, why I’ve started blogging. I’ve come to realize that accepting this challenge has gifted me a new strength. I’m a software developer who has gained the ability to see deeper into my own mind than I had previously thought possible, an ability to debug and refactor my own mental coding. Some of my first insights convinced me that blogging would help me rebuild, and may also help others learn from both my mistakes and triumphs. I will dig into some of those insights further in upcoming postings.
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