S- Sorry if this is late tonight... are you OK?
me- Yes I'm fine, why do you ask?
S- Well I hope you are being real with me. Just a friend who misses his friend that he used to be tight with.
Me- Aww thats sweet. I've just been busy working out after work, reading in spare time. Haven't done much in the hangout dept lately.
S- I noticed. You sure you are ok?
The rest of the conversation is more personal, but I did open up about some of the areas I'm "troubled with", and it proved to be a very valuable lesson. The reason I share this with you all is because upon further dissection of the entire dialogue I found that I've been abusing working out. I don't mean in that "I need to get swole" kind of way- more in the sense of using it as an outlet to release negative emotions vs. actually talking to someone and working out my problems.
S has always been my outlet, my 'go to' for advice. I realized that a lot of people also go to him for advice on their problems as well; knowing this, I didn't want to be adding to the stress of him helping others with their problems, so I just kind of stopped awhile back.
Now that I didn't have my 'counselor', so to speak, it got to the point where if I didn't work out I was more 'high strung' so I began trying to do something almost every day, thus monopolizing a large chunk of my available time. I work 10-7- generally save exercise till after work, so by the time I'm done its 9pm and I'm winding down for the evening. Since I've been doing this for well over a month now, its become part of my weekly routine and I get that "something is missing" feeling if I skip too many days.
My question to you all:
How do you find balance between exercise and socialization with loved ones?
I have a hard time doing both and it seems whichever I choose, the other one gets the back seat for awhile. I need to learn how do have a healthy combination of both, and be happy about it.Any advice on the dos or don'ts on how to find a harmony in your life that is also manageable??
