That familiar feeling was back: my chest tightened a little bit; my focus fragmented into a million directions; my anxiety began to climb. And the voice in my head sternly reprimanded me – “You’re doing it AGAIN! You’ve wasted your whole morning!”
I looked at the clock. It was 8:13am.
This is an all-too-common scenario for me – I am doing something and a wave of “you are failing to do this other thing” crashes over me, unbidden and triggered by who knows what. It’s not always about work. I feel anxious because I haven’t caught up on the Expanse novels, because I haven’t finished watching the Mandalorian yet, because there is yet another movie being added to the “Movies I Should Watch” list but none have been watched in months, because I’m not writing, because I am behind on my exercise routine …
What’s the Daft Punk song? Harder, Better, Faster Stronger ….
Lately, I’ve been feeling the crush of trying to Do and Be All The Things. There are things I want to improve. There I things I enjoy. There are things I have to do. But I am not convinced that the current pattern of my life of “fill every minute with SOMETHING or else I’ll fall behind” is working for me.
The truth is, all of these lists grow faster than they shrink. Even if there was just one list, I couldn’t ever finish it. But something – culture, my own broken thinking, the devil(?) – is telling me that I am “less than”, that I am a failure because I can’t do/know/be it ALL.
Frankly, that’s bullshit.
Of course there are ways that I can be more intentional about the way I send my time. Of course there are better choices and worse choices to be made in the moment. The way I am wired, I can’y help but consider those things.
But maybe, in the midst of trying to find the systems and habits that will move me forward, I also give myself a little permission to be human. 8:13 AM is not “slacker time” – getting to work by 9 is how a whole lot of the world works. (Understanding that many of you start earlier than that.) I may not be able to write a book about Crushing It Every Morning at 9AM, but I need to stop feeling like taking the time to eat a healthy breakfast and taking a few minutes to breathe is wasting time.
I had a recent work conversation where I was reflecting on the fact that we all want to get the 97%+ on the test. In an ideal world, we’d all ace everything and be the valedictorians of our lives. But there are times when the constraints of reality need to be honored. Sometimes, there isn’t enough time, money, talent, availability to get the A+. Sometimes, if we can accept the solid B+, we can get that done AND still have resources to spare.
