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Find your own peace. Free up some mental space for yourself

In the last two years, I’ve tried to master the art of living for myself first. It is not a firewall against mental distress, but it keeps me away from the edge. It frees me from any sustained mental exhaustion.

I’ve learnt to pause. Say damn it! I won’t respond to anything or anyone today. I can’t live happily, nor make anyone happy if I have clutters in my head.

I used to allow way too much space for other people’s issue to become the centre of my attention. I would stress about deadlines, no matter how difficult and excruciating. No matter how mentally overwhelming. I was too concerned about keeping my word than preserving what I would call a personal and valuable mental space.

People try to harry you, give you 25 missed calls to pressure you to get a job done. Occasionally, I have ghost-writing commitments to undertake. Mostly biographical stuff. I try to combine these commitments with the normal 9-5 thing.

People don’t understand you can stare at your computer screen for a whole week, and you’re unable to complete a single page of their work. Because, well, you just can’t. It’s just not flowing. And when it’s not happening, it’s not happening. It's the nature of creative work. So you’re one week late, and you say, Oga, Madam, please give me time. But some clients can be cynical and want to act like they pay you—they own you.

It is at this point I ask them to submit their account number so I refund their money. The options are open: new deadline or a refund. And I plead further: your calls raise my anxiety level. I don’t like seeing it. I won’t pick up. SMS me instead. For indeed, there are days you are so mentally drained, the mere sight of an incoming call makes you want to leap out of your house and run away.

People are looking for who to pile their problems on. Who are they trying to kill?

Make it a “You First” life. Don’t get drenched swimming in other people’s troubled waters. If you die today, they would find other people to put the burden on. They would develop means to solve their problems without you. The very problems they cried and wailed that only you can solve.

The weaker a cord is, the less it can adjust to being stretched. And worse is the decision to stretch it, unless one intends to break it. Guide against extended mental exhaustion.

In a land of so much hardship and lack of even the most basic social amenities, how much burden of your own can you take? Multiply it by that of friends who want you to sit them on your lap. Multiply it by the number of business associates who want you to be Harry Potter? Then ask yourself how much you’re willing to take before everything begins to turn to a blur?

You first. Find your own peace. Free up some mental space for yourself. When the stress abounds, tell everyone you need a break. They can shove it. Live. Those who say they would die if you don’t solve their problems will survive. Trust me, they will.

mitterand okorie

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