Excitement in Trying New Things Even When Feeling Unwell【It’s a Success As Long As I Try My Best】

Recently, I have gotten to practice speaking English with fellow Japanese English learners in Spaces on Twitter.
*A Space is a group chat function that Twitter launched this year. Any Twitter users can join Spaces, even if you don’t follow the host. 

As an online English teacher, I can speak about anything one way or another in English. However, I feel frustrated and even embarrassed when I cannot put my ideas into words in a way that I’m supposed to be able to do. 

There have been many times when I get mad at myself and think “I could do much better than this if only I felt better!” 

I have always felt fuzzy brained, fatigued, and had headaches, stomachaches, chills and a sleep disorder. There has never been a single day when my mind or body is refreshed since the day I came down with ME, 26 years ago 

My health problems severely limit my performance in everything, and it is extremely stressful.

As a matter of fact, I have never been able to take an English proficiency test such as the Eiken and the TOEIC test when I was feeling well.

I still clearly remember the frustration that I felt when I took the Eiken Grade pre-1 in 2009. For two weeks prior to the test, I had an upset stomach and had to live on rice porridge. Even on the test day, I was feeling nauseous, and I failed the test by two points. 

I also had a day when I had a horrible stomachache during a test, and it took me 20 minutes to alleviate the pain by taking deep breaths and stroking my stomach.

No matter how unrealistic it may sound, it is completely normal for me to take tests in such a horrible physical state. 

I used to think when I looked at my disappointing test results, “I could’ve done much better if only I had been feeling well.” 

However, I have come to see things in a different way now. 

It’s normal to feel unwell  

In the summer, I was asked to join a bilingual podcast, where the emcees and a guest speak both in English and Japanese, and I accepted that offer immediately.

That’s when I started wondering what I should do to get well enough to speak as fluently as I could. 

I was thinking out loud when my mom said to me “You can just show who you are no matter how bad you’re feeling because that’s your usual self.” 

Her comment made me feel better, especially because it was from a woman who has been suffering from a chronic illness for over 40 years.

If I joined a podcast or filmed a YouTube video only when I’m feeling 100% well, there would only be a day in a year (at most). 

However, there would be a lot more days if tried when I can give it half as much as what I’ve got. 

Furthermore, if I had a day when I could bring out 80% of my full capacity, I would feel lucky, and getting 100% out of me would make me feel super lucky and happy.  

I always have headaches and feel unwell and awfully fatigued. I’m aware that that is my life, so I have come to call it a success if only I manage to do the best that I can. 

The realization was an eye opener for me.

Just the other day, I carried out a practice exam for the TOEIC test, with a count-down timer. 

It is only natural that you want to try such a test when you feel well to get as high a score as possible, but I did it when I was feeling as unwell as usual.  

An hour and a half into the two-hour test, I started to feel sick, but I grinned because it meant that I was doing the practice under the same conditions as an actual test.