It is 6:14 PM on a Tuesday evening. I am now inside my most favorite cafe shop escaping from the stressful traffic and gloomy rain and waiting for my Chicken Nuggey being served. Yes, I am starving.
I had rice with pork which is a very common breakfast-go-to in Cambodia for my breakfast, a cup of latte and two slices of sour mango as my lunch. Yes, I ain’t lie but NO! I am not on any diet plan; I just… forgot to think that my body needed something to stay stable and strong. It is not the first time though, but it is the first time I wanted to do something, to change it… No, I mean to change me, myself.
I love food, and I do have “bon appetit.” But I have one problem, I don’t usually give my stomach’s desire my first priority. I usually tell my stomach to “wait” because… ” I’m busy.” I am…BUSY.
From time to time, my stomach stayed still, silent. “Good job buddy! I’m proud of you. You are so strong more than I thought you could be. Please stay the same.” That was true; my stomach stayed the same, but I noticed things changed. “I am physically dying.” I had noticed it for quite some time now, but I just forgot that my body needed something to stay stable, strong, and… survive. “I’m sorry for getting skinnier and skinnier but I’m strong, don’t worry. I won’t die. I have a lot of things to do in life…mom”
My typical day is to go to class in the morning, meet quality people in the afternoon to do some quality works for, what I believe, “the better society.” I have one good friend, ” Have you eaten? Take a break, and take care of your health. You’re getting skinnier to the bonds now.”- my words I sometimes say to him. Funny as it may seem, that is what he usually replied, “I know I’m getting skinnier, but I’m okay. I’m strong, and I’m not hungry yet. I have a lot of things to finish.” We laughed of course! That’s what we found in common.
Later on, I had finished my 3-month vacation, “my most productive vacation in life”, with only a  4-day break. But it’s worth spending time. It was when I had time to do reflection on my attitude toward my own lifestyle and my good people in life. I realized I hadn’t done anything personal for them. I missed them, I still miss them.
When I came back from my 4-day break, I decided to refresh myself starting from deactivating my social media account to call out all of my good people and spend lots of time with them. I shared them what was going on in my life when I cut them off because I was BUSY, when I was stressed and I needed them but I didn’t have time because I was BUSY, and when I was on my 4-day break and I secretly wished they were there with me but they couldn’t because they were BUSY. After finishing listening to my funny confession of my busy life, they then started to tell their funny-busy-life when I wasn’t there. We had tremendous quality time. Oh, and we actually met at this cafe as well.
“I am hungry now.” One of my friends said. “Have you eaten yet?” I then asked her wanted to know if she had finished her lunch before she came to meet me that day. “Not yet! Haha! Have you?” “I haven’t too.” We laughed. But that time was different, I felt something wrong. I felt that I had missed something which was also important, and that was my own self. I forgot to spend time for myself because I thought that my life would be better if I sphere my time for my people. But as I did it. I still felt sorry for myself. I told my friends about it suddenly, and we found the best lesson of our meet up that day.
We then came back to our busy lives but one thing, in particular, we keep doing right now is our 2-hour meet up at the gym each week for swimming and stuff. And two things, in particular, I keep doing right now is serving myself healthy appetite in every 4 hours and 8 minutes of working out each day. “It feels good, trust me,” I told my another friend whom I believe is a workaholic. Yep, the one who usually said even if he was thin but he was strong. “Spend 1 hour each day for doing things for your own mental or physical health, please. Whatever it is, just do it for yourself.” I encouraged him with no expectation that he would take it into consideration.
“I did it yesterday. I felt good” He told me this evening while sitting in front of his computer doing his skillful editing career which what I call “complicated stuff.” He said, ” I now understand what is the happiness of doing things for our own health.” “What is it?” I asked him back imagined my friend was about to be enlightened. “It is when you realize that you are important; that you have a lot of things to do, tasks to finish, people to take care, and places to explore, so if something happens to us, everything is affected. We cannot die that easy, not even getting sick.”…”Ah ha! Bye, dear, I’m busy. I need to eat something and spend my evening on my class work. And I won’t be here helping you tomorrow. It’s my day off.” “Good luck for both of us!” Then I left there and ended up at this cafe.
Here comes my Chicken Nuggey, lol. I had to put things down and enjoyed every good bite of it before it got cold. Hope you enjoy my nonsense story of one of my typical evening. Won’t let it happen again that easy.
1 hour for yourself each day or whatever it is, just do it for yourself some time. Trust me, it feels so good! Oops! I’m not an expert.
Thanks!
love,
Van
PS. Forgive me if my language is not good enough. I’ll come back and edit later. (I’m busy now)
The SAGACITY 