On nights when my heart sinks, my balance is usually off. About the night I drank to drown out a sadness with no reason.

Yesterday, after work, I drowned myself in alcohol.
There wasn't any clear reason for it.

It was just that, for some reason, I felt sad.

If asked what happened,
there was no specific event I could explain.
Even so, my heart felt heavy, and somewhere inside, it had quietly broken.

Looking back on it now,
there is one thing I am certain of.

When my heart sinks, I have always lost my balance.

When I lean too much into work, my world narrows.

Lately,
I have been thinking only about work.

How is my performance?
Am I meeting expectations?
Am I disappointing anyone?
Am I holding others back?

Before I knew it,
work had occupied the majority of my mind.

Time with family,
my kickboxing hobby,
reading,
and writing,
all became things I would only do if I had the spare time.

When the center of gravity in my life shifts too much toward work,
my world suddenly shrinks.

The habit of comparing myself to an ideal

When my balance is off,
I invariably start comparing my current self to an ideal version of myself.

I should have been able to do more.
I should have been stronger.
I should have been calmer and more composed.

The more I compare myself like that,
the more my current self seems small, immature, and fragile.

On top of that,
I add the imagination of 'what others might be thinking of me'.

Being controlled by unverified evaluations

What must my boss be thinking?
Are my colleagues disappointed in me?

I haven't actually checked.
Even so, in my head,
the worst possible evaluations play on a loop.

If I am seen positively, I can feel at ease,
but if I am perceived negatively, it is terribly painful.

In short, I was
living as a sensor for reading other people's moods.

There is no way that could be enjoyable.

The problem was not the event, but the balance

Here, I realized one important thing.

Even if the same event occurs,
when I am in balance, I do not sink this low.

• Moving my body

• Laughing properly at home

• Writing and expressing my inner self

When I have time for these things,
even if something unpleasant happens at work,
I don't feel like 'my whole life has been rejected'.

The problem was not the event, but
where the balance of my life was leaning.

What 'managing myself' means to me

So, I
redefined managing myself like this.

Management is
neither binding myself nor pushing myself too hard.

It is checking the balance and restoring it.

For me, those are the following four things.

• Family

• Hobbies (kickboxing, reading)

• Creative activities like note

• Work

If I lean too much on any one of these,
my heart will inevitably start to warp.

Yesterday's alcohol
might have been a sign to help me notice that imbalance.

What I want to do from now on—small improvements

Looking ahead,
I don't want to change my life dramatically.

What I want to do is
become someone who can notice a broken balance sooner.

Specifically, I will be mindful of these things.

• When I feel negative,
  look at 'what I've been leaning toward lately' first
  rather than 'what happened'.

• When I start imagining how others evaluate me,
  pause for a moment and ask, 'Is that a fact?'

• On nights when I want to escape into alcohol,
  move my body or write down my feelings.

• Periodically check to see if any of my work, family, hobbies, or creative pursuits
  have disappeared.

It doesn't have to be perfect.
It's okay if I fall apart again.

But,
the speed at which I can notice that I've fallen apartis something I want to
gradually increase.

I'm still in the middle of the process, but

even now,
I worry about how others perceive me.
I sometimes feel down when comparing myself to my ideal self.

Even so, the one thing that is different from before is that
I no longer immediately conclude
'this is because I am no good'.

Now, first,
I re-examine my balance.

If I can do that,
life isn't as broken as I think it is.

In that way,
I intend to rebuild things little by little.