self-improvement
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Uneasy Slumber
Dear Conscience, Trying to get up, but I can’t find my feet. Maybe if I stop burdening myself with the guilt of inaction, it will become easier to move. Sitting in the park, my daughter sleeping in the stroller, enjoying the breeze. Sincerely, B. Continue reading
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No Time to Fight Off Disease
Dear Conscience, I haven’t felt healthy in weeks now. O got sick, never fully rested and recovered. Too much running around, and no rest in sight either. Nose still stuffy, throat hurts, cough attacks, headache…. With a toddler who keeps bringing germs from daycare, no paid sick leave, and at most times nobody to jump Continue reading
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Determination Missing
Dear Conscience, Tomorrow I need to summon my determination. It’ll have been a full week of just floating wherever the stream takes me, back to my old ways. I need to start swimming towards the bank before I reach the waterfall. Sincerely, B. Continue reading
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Lost
Dear Conscience, I’ve lost my way a little. It felt like I had stepped onto the right path last week. Then a storm came and wiped that path away. There is no going back to that same path, it simply isn’t there anymore. But I always have a hard time letting go and moving on. Continue reading
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New Circumstances, New Plan
Dear Conscience, My circumstances have changed, and unfortunately, for the worse. I now face more challenges and less support. And you may have noticed, I wasn’t having an easy time before this either. I’ve done my 2 days of wallowing. But wallowing only sets me back. I need a new plan, and it has slowly Continue reading
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How Many Times Until I Learn?
Dear Conscience, This morning I took the excuse of my client being out of office to take my meeting slowly. It started with wanting to watch the new episode of John Oliver. But it hadn’t come out yet. So instead of just going back to work, I found that Jon Stewart is back on the Continue reading
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Can You Catch Up From Being Chronically Inert for 40 Years?
Dear Conscience, Things are getting complicated. My parents are getting old and frail. My daughter is a toddler who needs constant attention and care. I haven’t secured a career and my life savings are not on track. Everything is coming at once because I didn’t get to things in the right time. I haven’t cared Continue reading
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Turbulence
Dear Conscience, Today was turbulent. I need a minute to regroup. Sincerely, B. Continue reading
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TGIF
Dear Conscience, It is Friday. I am ending the work week feeling slightly more accomplished than usually. But my focus today was wavering. And while thinking through what was causing this urge to procrastinate, I realized that it was Friday. Friday was causing it. Friday is rarely a deadline. Often I feel that emails sent Continue reading
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Start the Day With 90 Minutes of Focus
Dear Conscience, I am trying to gradually implement the advice of neuroscientist Andrew Huberman into my morning routine. Today I made my best attempt at adding 90 minutes of focused cognitive work early in the morning. I am pretty satisfied. I got up at 6:35 AM, and again took a little too long to get Continue reading
About Me
I got my first nickname when I was 4 years old. It was “bakitza”, which means ‘an old lady’. I’ve always been an old lady on the inside. And as I progress towards being an old lady on the outside too, I want to take control of this journey. To reach the full fledged bakitza level with a peace of mind I always associated with that life stage. I thought it would come on it’s own with age. But now I realize that I have to take control over the mess that my life currently is in order to be a thoroughly satisfied bakitza one day.
Becoming Bakitza 