It's not just me!

[anxious_hb]

I went back to my hometown at Christmas and had a girly catch up with 4 of my best friends. We were friends at school, but despite living in different areas of the country we still keep in regular contact and meet up when we can.

During a long chatting session over lunch we came on to the subject of work and stress. One of my friends has a one year old and said she was finding it hard to juggle full time work and a family, the other took a promotion last year and was saying how much extra time she spends working, another has just qualified as a teacher and said she was struggling at first etc etc. As it dawned on me that my friends lives were not exactly as rosy as I thought I felt it was a good time to be frank and ask a question I hadn't dare ask before.

As teenagers we were studious, top of the class and ambitious. We have all had our own forms of success in our fields, but has this come at a price? Has our overall happiness and general wellbeing been for lost in our quest for success? And then I said it..."is it just me or has anyone else lost their ambition?" I was surprised to hear the answer was yes a little. We all agreed that as we have got older our priorities have started to shift and our career ambitions have dwindled somewhat.

Although it wasn't nice to hear that my close friends were also having some testing times too, it was nice to speak openly and realise that we were all going through a bit of a transition period. The moral of the story for me was that in future I should be a little more open speaking about some of my feelings. Although peoples situations are different and peoples feelings of anxiety/stress vary, everyone has their own personal testing times in life and sharing them can often help.

Thanks,

HB

[stde]

You have just had a "learning" experience............treasure it..............xx