Dear Somebody: How to stop feeling guilty about not being productive

Five things from this week that I'd like to remember

A paint palette and accompanying essay from How it Feels to Find Yourself

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A year from now, here are five things from this week that I'd like to remember:

MONDAY

When you know yourself well, it’s easier to locate the significance in every small moment. Your capacity to retain peace during difficult transitions increases. You understand that most situations have more than one correct answer. You feel freer.

The most important relationship we can spend our lives nurturing is the relationship we have with ourselves. The lens through which we view ourselves determines our connection to the world. If that lens is cracked or cloudy, each of our relationships begins to suffer. Building a strong internal compass that skillfully guides you through life’s uncertainties is possible only by developing an intimate, healthy relationship with yourself. Through this process of continued self-exploration, I began to learn who I am, what my purpose is, and how to intentionally shape my life into one I recognize with joy. Living well means adapting to life’s constant transition; evolving with purpose and clarity is a skill I now practice regularly. This is how I found myself—for the first time, and then again, every time after that. 

—An excerpt from the introduction of How it Feels to Find Yourself

TUESDAY

It’s 4:00 in the morning and How it Feels to Find Yourself will be published today. I feel sloppy and underprepared, like I’m about to take a test I haven’t studied for. In all the chaos of the last few months, I’ve barely been able to put much time into promoting this book. As fellow authors know, especially those who write for adults—your work isn’t over when you finish writing the book. The publicity and marketing aspect of publishing is overwhelming for those of us who prefer staying out of the limelight. I personally prefer being behind a desk than a camera; book promotion demands I summon the extrovert inside me, however well she may have hidden.

Anyway. It’s 4:00 and we’re up to feed the baby, it being 2.5 hours since she’s last eaten. I stumble around in a haze, changing her diaper and tending to her spit-up, shoving a pacifier in her small. sweet mouth as her little lungs get ready to scream. I hand her to T who looks like a zombie but sits in the recliner to give her a bottle anyway. I gotta write my newsletter, I mumble sleepily, and he nods.

Back in bed, it’s 4:30 am. I open my laptop and begin to write, promising myself that this is the last crazy thing I’ll do in a long while. I’m going to sleep instead of writing newsletters at 4:30 in the morning, I tell myself. I’m going to exercise instead of giving birth a few weeks prior to completing graduate school, I tell myself. I’m going to delight in healthier cooking and eating instead of working myself to the bone.

I finish writing and close the laptop. I check on T and the baby, both of whom are asleep again, the steady rise and fall of their chests following each breath. I pull the covers up to my nose and exhale deeply. This is the last crazy thing I do, I repeat to myself.

This is the summer of long walks and less running around. This is the summer of cookouts and lazy pool days and no homework. This is the summer of breathing in baby and being crazy with toddler. This is the summer of new recipes and friendships and sleep and smiles. This is the summer I see more and do less. This is the summer I read more and write less. This is the summer for rest and replenishing. This is the summer of silence.

I will not feel guilty for not being productive. And maybe, months from now, when I feel good and ready—I will begin again.

WEDNESDAY

Most of us who hit 40 have had enough experiences—winning and losing—to know that it is all actually “winning” and “losing.” The best job in the world can also cause you profound stress. Getting the promotion, raise, book deal that you always wanted, might feel like a hard-won achievement in certain ways, and in others, it is likely to be anti-climatic and send you spinning off into a moment of existential confusion. If you’ve experienced the texture of work long enough, you start to sober up about what really matters to you, what you are really made for, and what you want to spend your precious energy and time on. You understand that the deepest sense of self-realization doesn’t come through paychecks or titles, but through genuine, intrinsic pride that you have done something you are delighted by with people who delight you. Midlife is a moment to seek a more finely calibrated understanding of all of this and start advocating for yourself within work settings (whether that means joining a labor union or saying no more to freelance work or not tolerating assholes). Of course the most insecure your financial situation, and the less lucrative your life’s work, the more constraints you face on living into these truths. Which is why economic disparity is about so much more than “food on the table,” but people’s ability to give the world their best gifts and live their fullest, most realized lives.

—An excerpt from Grow Bigger Not Bitter by Courtney Martin

THURSDAY

A simple photograph to celebrate this week, this book, and a vow to be less measurably productive:

FRIDAY

My shadow said to me:
what is the matter
Isn’t the moon warm
enough for you
why do you need
the blanket of another body
Whose kiss is moss
Around the picnic tables
The bright pink hands held sandwiches
crumbled by distance. Flies crawl
over the sweet instant
You know what is in these blankets
The trees outside are bending with
children shooting guns. Leave
them alone. They are playing
games of their own.
I give water, I give clean crusts
Aren’t there enough words
flowing in your veins
to keep you going. 

—The Shadow Voice by Margaret Atwood

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See you next week!

xx,

M

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