New Zealand Weekly Update #66

23rd of January until 28th of January 2024

Approximate reading time: 5 minutes

Lets get it started

Happy days fellas! That was quite a week. At the moment we are short staffed at work and so everone is busy all the time. Retail can be fun but sometimes it is exhausting. Trying to give energy all the time. Advice. Attention. Trying to make every customer happy and to give them the best possible service takes away a lot of energy. And usually, you do not get back the same amount of energy. At the end of a week, you took quite an energy credit and you need to fill up this energy again. Somehow. Somewhere. Someday. For me, most of the time I can refill while doing some kind of sports. Or being outdoors. Hiking. Running. Biking. Or going for a swim. Fortnunately, this matches with my plans of doing a 70.3 Triathlon (70.3 stands for the total amount of miles you are doing, swimming, biking and running combined). But at the moment, I struggle with training. There is no consistency, no real structure. I just do some training whenever I feel it. And most of the times, its biking or swimming at the moment since I did a lot of running last year. And from time to time, I feel quite out of energy. But more on that later.

Some great news on my way to residency! My qualification as M.Sc. back in Germany got recognized this week. So now my qualification is comparable to the same qualification in New Zealand. This is one requirement to apply for residency (well, to apply for the pathway I have been chosen). Not it is just about an english test and some prove of skilled work in New Zealand. And if everything goes well, I might be able to apply 🙂 I will keep you updated on this.

Giving in?

As I told you, sometimes I struggle with my training. Especially at the moment. Body and mind feel quite tired and exhausted. It might be the combination of work, hard training, quite a small amount of days off and the permament struggle of trying to save money. And whenever I was able to put some money away, something would show up. Get them qualifications recognized. English test. Car. Something owuld show up. And soemtimes I find myself sitting at home after work wondering how to move on. How to keep going. And for how long. We all have those days. Those moments. Or even those weeks. Where everything feels heavy. Difficult. And where we want to give up. To give in. To sit down, cry and just throw in the towel. I have days like those. And on such days, sometimes I am not even able to go for a run or do something that lights up my mood. Sometimes I just want those days to be over. Those might be the hardest days. And this is okay. It is normal. We can not be the best version of ourselves each and every day. We can not give 100% or more each and every day. Sometimes, the best we can do is to sit down, have a cup of tea (or a glass of wine 🙂 ) and just breath. We do not have to be efficiant, inspirational and challenging each and every day. Whatever you see on social media and whatever someone would tell you. Each and everyone struggles from time to time. Each and everyone would sometimes just sit down, put their head into their heads and let tihe time goes by. For me, those days are the worst. But they are necessary. Since they give us the option to reconsicer. To rethink. And to refocus. To think about why we are in this particula situation. Why we struggle. And what takes away the energy from us. And those moments are also important to remind us why we started a certain journey. Or a new job. Or a new challenge. A new adventure. Why we started something new. What we would expect to achieve. How we would expect to feel. What we would need to change to move on. And those moments of struggles always make me aware of one fact. Happiness and sadness are never consistent. Never endless. They come and go. It is always just a matter of time until we would feel different. Feel better or worse. It is a steady up and down. A steady change. And we can decide how we deal with those emotions and thoughts. For a very long time, I was asking myself, why I would feel bad. Sad. Upset. Or why a certain situation would occure. And most of the times, I would not receive any answer. By whom?

Since I started to ask myself a different question, those bad moments tent to last not for too long anymore. I started to ask myself what a cerain situation, thought or emotion would try to tell me. To teach me. And if there would be a reason this situation, this thought or this emotion would show up in this very moment. And with asking a different question, the outcome would become different. Since I started to believe, that almost every situation in life occurs for a certain reason. It might be because life wants to test us. To teach us. To challenge us. Or to make sure we have learned our lesson. To make sure we moved on. And I am pretty sure that life will test us again and again and again. Until we have learned. Until we have moved on. Or until we would be finally able to let go. To let go of trying to hold on things, that are not healthy for us anymore. To let go of things that weigh us down. To let go of things that hold us back. To let go of things that would prevent us from moving on.
Recently, I have read something quite interesting, that might be a reason to still keep going with this weekly update. With those thoughts. And with writing down all of the things that would come up in my mind while writing. Writing a kind of a diary or blog and givind advice (or talking about different ideas of life) is almost like talking to yourself. As if you would give this advice to yourself. As if you would try to help yourself to move on. To let go. To change. And to make space in your mental memory. For something new. Something better. Something out of our control.

What else to say?

Yikes, my shoulders and arms feel quite sore today as I went to the pools yesterday and today do move on with my training for the Triathlon. And sometimes I would still struggle with the swimming part. Most of the people doing freestyle are way faster than I am. Seem to be way more relaxed. Way more experienced. Or having a way better technique. And I realized that I would sometimes get back into a bad habit of comparing. And asking myself why, why, why. The last two days, I tried to conciously stop this way of thinking. It does not matter why and if someone is faster. Or better. And I started to try to really enjoy the workout. To get into a vibe. A mood. A consistent and constant movement while swimming. Stroke. Breath. Stroke. Breath. Stroke. Breath. Without thinking about others. And focussing just on breathing and the strokes.

And sometimes, it worked out. It almost felt like being one with the water. Floating forward. Being in the zone. And it made me realize that sports is not always about being faster than everybody else. Or running further as everyone else. Sometimes it is just about enjoying the moment. Without any thoughts. Without any emotions but happieness. And about focussing on what you do in that very moment. Since, after more than two months of trying to improve my freestlye technique, I became aware of the fact, that freestyle is a fucking complex movement. And that it takes a lot of training to improve. A lot of effort and commitment. And a lot of water to swallow 🙂
See you next week!

Your DingyInternational
Felix