I'm a happy camper and I have all the right reasons to be. My career is going well, my family and friends are doing great, I'm starting this awesome book called "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen Covey. Life's great. Okay, that's optimistic Khanh talking. Realistic Khanh will tell you that the work week definitely takes its toll on me. I wake up at 8 every morning, but my day is not over until 7:30 PM at night when I'm done with my workouts. With that said, I've noticed that my mood has also changed drastically. If I get at least 7 hours of sleep a day, I would wake up feeling extremely refreshed. However, as the day goes on, I find myself feeling extremely irritable and at times, highly sensitive. Not only am I much more attuned  with other people's behaviors and reactions, I've also developed a IDGAF attitude, which I'm not too proud of. [I can sometimes do reckless things to hurt others whenever I start to feel this way] Ex: Say things I don't mean, do things I wouldn't normally do, etc. So before things start to go out of hands, I had no choice but to turn to research in order to explain my current dilemma.

Here are some of the conclusions I've reached:

1) I haven't had enough time for myself.

"When the Well-of-Self overflow with 'too much': too much time with others, too much time at work, too much attention poured into someone else. When we direct too much energy outward, we lose the sense of spaciousness that defines well-being and that's when irritation ensues. So if you can see your irritation as a sign that you need to take some space to fill up your well nourishment, you will return to the situation with more space inside and your irritation will naturally diminish.'

2) I'm experiencing a classic case of burnout.

I started pursuing my career with fire and passion. I also wanted to have an outstanding social life so I did what I could to schedule an event every single weekend or so. Concerts, raves, social gatherings. You name it. While I've gained an incredible network of friends and have finally stepped into the entertainment arena, I began to obsess more about my work as well as reaching this level of perfection (something that obviously doesn't exist). I gave up dating completely, walked away from a couple of friendships (see blog post below), and without realizing it, I took it upon myself to become a workaholic as I continue to seize every opportunity that came my way.

The American Psychological Association’s David Ballard, PsyD describes this burnout as “an extended period of time where someone experiences exhaustion and a lack of interest in things, resulting in a decline in their job performance.”

“A lot of burnout really has to do with experiencing chronic stress,” says Dr. Ballard, who is the head of the APA’s Psychologically Healthy Workplace Program. “In those situations, the demands being placed on you exceed the resources you have available to deal with the stressors.”

And of course, with this comes all kinds of negative emotions ---frustration, cynicism, pessimism. I'm not even going to go in further details with all the other cognitive problems I've been experiencing. I understand that it does in fact come with a territory and I'm no stranger to piling things on my plate. However, I know when something's wrong and right now, something's really wrong.

With Memorial Day Weekend coming up, I hope to spend a couple of hours to unplug, practice meditation, and read a couple of more chapters of my book. I am still very much grateful for the life that I get to live, but by investing so much of my time into work and other people, I have once again failed to prioritize myself. -Typical Khanh maneuver-

Alright, it's time for bed. I hope you guys take a chance to really think about what you've been doing lately and whether or not you've loved yourself enough to give you some time to breathe. I know that I'm guilty of this all of the time, but again...I'm still a work-in-progress.