DAY 9: Getting it all wrong
Friday, January 27, 2023
WFIW of the Day: As i was laying in bed playing Animal Crossing this morning, a feeling washed over me. It was a sharp gratitude, mixed with a little sadness… SADitude? The sudden realization that what I was doing RIGHT THEN, on a leisurely Friday morning, was exactly what I wished for with such desperation when I was a corporate lawyer. I used to desire it so much, and now I had it and took it for granted all the time. Simultaneous gratitude AND realization that we human beings are alllll fucked up when it comes to our wanting.
Fully fucked up is how I’d describe our relationship to work and free time, especially here in the U.S.
You know what caused me the most distress when I was a balls-out corporate lawyer working on hundred million dollar deals?
……Not the nights that I went home at 2:30am and collapsed into bed. Those were exhausting, sure, but left little room for existential thinking.
—> No, the times that caused the most “WTF is wrong with me"??” feelings were those rare, free Saturday mornings.
I always thought I should feel blissful and relaxed, hands around a warm mug of coffee, sitting in a sunny nook with a magazine full of opinion pieces.
NOPE. I always felt restless, undecided, torn between two parts of me.
The “good” productive part that would say, “Well, this is a fine morning to go do a Barry’s Bootcamp workout and then grab a healthy salad brunch. Then, you can go about your day feeling proud and accomplished - maybe you can even go grocery shopping and check in on your parents.”
The “bad” lazy, rebellious part that would say, “Fuuuuuck that. I want pastries and mimosas and exploration and adventure! Oh and when was the last time you just laid on your couch all day and binge-watched a show while sampling Trader Joe’s snacks?”
And if I had just committed fully to one or the other, I’m sure my Saturday would have been somewhat restorative. But I always warred between the two. I’d resolve to go workout, but then put it off so long that I felt ravenously hungry and I’d just make myself a bowl of instant ramen and then I COULDN’T workout ‘cause I had just eaten, so I’d just wander around my small apartment spending my gorgeous morning beating myself up for my own laziness and feeling really tired as a result.
>>>I always thought that if I worked hard enough, I could earn myself some free time. Then, I’d be so happy filling that free time up with meaningful, creative projects that I couldn’t WAIT to jump into.
It wasn’t just as a lawyer. When I was growing my calligraphy business, I kept pushing myself to “scale” the company. There was a fantasy glowing just on the horizon of me in a castle, having finally found the right systems and employees to run all the unpleasant parts of my business ON AUTOPILOT, while I just came up with fun ideas and played with my calligraphy.
I kept telling my life coach that I wanted to build my business up to a certain point, so that I could work two days a week and the rest of my time would be FREEEEEEE.
“Free for what?” She asked.
“For…. for…. all the fun stuff I want to do.” I fumbled.
And then I realized it. Whenever I got any free time, I never knew what to do with myself. I ended up filling it up with something work related or otherwise “productive”.
I HAD IT ALL TOTALLY FUCKING BACKWARDS.
What I needed to do was cultivate a hobby or passion outside of productivity that MADE ME WANT TO WORK LESS.
>>> It’s like I was swimming in a pond, trying to scoop out holes in the water, hoping that they would fill up with earth so I could get out of the water for a bit and rest. And I’d be so perplexed when those holes always ended up filled with water again. When what I really needed to do was go out and FIND SOME SOLID GROUND and shovel it into the pond to create a little island where I could stop swimming. And the water would get displaced on its own.
Maybe eventually some of the water would spill out of the pond, and honestly, no one would really notice it was gone….
Ok ok, I think I’m taking this metaphor too far, but it’s a damn good illustration of how I feel.
Maybe I can find a pond (like life coaching?) with pleasant water, nice to swim in, perfect for exercising my skills and challenging myself when I want to.
But with three or four SOLID ISLANDS that welcome me onto them so I can rest and play and sunbathe and just BE. Islands like family, friends, a fulfilling creative hobby (like calligraphy? watercoloring? mural painting?), and perhaps even volunteering for a cause that speaks to me…
For the me that’s me right now… that feels like getting it pretty RIGHT.
With Hope,
Shinah
P.S. - One day, I’m going to learn to draw crudely enough on my iPad so I can create little comics that illustrate these vivid metaphor pictures that pop into my head. Ya heard it here first ;)