For some time now, I've been feeling stuck. Stuck in a situation with no clear way out. Stuck in an emotional state that I can't seem to wrap my head around. Stuck in a huge mess of thoughts and responsibilities that I can't seem to untangle. I've piled on the workload (with 3 jobs, volunteer work, and self-improvement activities) that I leave myself beyond exhausted at the end of the day. I get about 4-5 hours of sleep daily and wake up at the crack of dawn. I don't have time to have a proper meal (rarely do I ever sit down to eat).

And I become cranky and hangry and even sometimes a b*tch because I want to say no, I want to stop, I want to slow down, but I can't seem to do that.

Picture this: You're on a moving train that is speeding down the railway towards a cliff and you can't jump off. There are two controls, one to speed up and one to slow down. And you continuously move the lever to speed up the train, evidently moving you closer to the edge of the cliff. You see the control to slow down. You know how to work it. There is no trick question or catch in working this lever. It's right there. You see it. You even reach for it from time to time, but something always stops you.

If that sounds relatable, then you might be stuck, too. And I don't mean stuck on a problem and not being able to solve it. I mean knowing how to solve the problem but not being able to accept or even acknowledge the solution. Instead, you justify the problem and try to make it work in your favor. You try to live with the problem, to cope with it in hopes that one day the problem might not be a problem. That it will become a part of everyday life.

I know what it's like to be so exhausted that I can't even eat. I've been in the position where I saw the bus drivers, the coffee shop barista, and the train conductors more than my own family. My last year of college, I commuted 6 hours every day to get to campus. I was never home. And it did put a strain on my relationship with friends and family. But I was stuck in a situation where I couldn't do anything about my schedule. I had to get to campus and there was only one way to do so.

As a millennial, there are times when I feel the pressure to have to do a lot. There is so much I want to accomplish, as all millennials know, we have huge dreams to make a grand impact in the world. And being called the stereotypical lazy millennial and grouped together with everyone who falls in my age group, is an added pressure. I'm sure I'm not the only one to feel that way.

But it really shouldn't have put me, or anyone for that matter, in the position to feel so stuck in one place and not being able to move forward. And I realized that I put myself in that position. I got a month to relax after graduation before I, once again, ended up being out of the house from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., and then eating dinner closer to midnight, giving me just a few hours to recoup some energy to do the same thing the next day. I had the option to say no but I didn't. I had the choice of where to work and I chose the most stressful job. And then I added on another one and another one until there wasn't anything more to fit in my schedule without erasing sleep entirely. I was stuck in the revolving cycle of doing too much and I really didn't know how to get out of it. I knew what I had to do, but I didn't know where to start.

And that's been the case for some time now, until, I guess about a week ago, when I finally found an out to my ridiculous schedule. I basically took my hand off the lever that speeds up the train and diverted my eyes to the one that slows it down. I haven't made any movements to reach towards it yet, but at least I'm no longer speeding it up. I'm working on getting it to slow down. I'm working on slowing myself down.

Life doesn't have to be this fast-paced, coffee-driven, speed-up-the-train dilemma; at one point or another, we all have to realize we are going to fall off the cliff if we don't slow down.