Enoughness
As I have said on LJ before, I frequently have never-enough-ness: that thing where you accomplish a big task or something good happens, and immediately you think of some other undone task or something bad that could happen, and feel defeated instead of feeling any satisfaction in the Done and the Good. It annoys me in others and it annoys me in myself. It is the enemy of happiness.
Today, I:
-reviewed and turned in a small job for a client that I'd done the rough draft of yesterday
-folded some laundry that's been in need of folding
-beat Kingdom Hearts 3D in English
-made my bed with fresh sheets
-cleaned a few more sections of the bathroom floor (I'm attacking the stubborn spots which get on bathroom tiles that have pocked surfaces/grout--this is an ongoing process which is now almost complete)
-laundered old sheets, rags from cleaning bathroom, etc.
-did three sets of plank pose
-responded to two emails that I've been putting off responding to
-watched the latest Downton Abbey and then called my mother as promised (Downton Abbey I CANNOT QUIT YOU <3)
-ran the dishwasher
-went through a big backlog of translator blog posts I'd neglected reading recently
And earlier this weekend I taught two Japanese lessons, did the grocery shopping, ate some truly excellent chocolate, and finished filling out a creative brief for the artist who will be designing my new logo.
Is this everything I could possibly have done? No. Or even everything I ambitiously wanted to/thought I should do when the weekend began? No--I didn't get in a yoga workout. Did I drink my 8 glasses of water both days? Sadly, no. But it is a perfectly reasonable weekend. It included both chores and leisure. I did everything I was 100% responsible to others for doing by the end of the weekend (client job & Japanese lessons).
So my knee-jerk reaction is, "The bathroom floor looks so nice but now I can't stop noticing that the mirror is all streaked, and I can say I did the planks but I didn't do a real workout, and I didn't fold all the clothes, just some of them, and I haven't emptied the dishwasher, and think of all those long-term personal projects still not complete gaaaaah"--but I am going to sternly say no. Instead of surrendering to the never-enough-ness and forfeiting any happiness, I'm going to do exactly what I'm doing, namely write a list of what I did, acknowledge that what I did mattered and it was good, acknowledge that adult humans have the right to play on the weekend, and in fact *I* have the right to play on the weekend, and in fact it is good for us to rest and not Do Things, and if I want to lie in bed and whack stuff with a key I can choose to think of that as being avoidant or procrastinating or some other negative thing that's not what I "should" be doing, but I can also with equal validity choose to think of it as, you know, a thing that I am doing because I feel like it and it is an OK thing for me to do.
So ha. I did some stuff, and while I acknowledge it was not All The Stuff or even maybe Enough Stuff To Satisfy My Grandmother, it was reasonable. I am not lazy and bad even if I lounged around for a while and left my apartment a mess. Come to think of it, I may not be bad even if I am lazy. Huh. I am going to try to believe that it is Enough, or that "enough-ness" doesn't maybe have to be the scale I work from.
Because it's definitely not Not Enough. Never-enough-ness is a lie and this weekend was by no means Not Enough.
Today, I:
-reviewed and turned in a small job for a client that I'd done the rough draft of yesterday
-folded some laundry that's been in need of folding
-beat Kingdom Hearts 3D in English
-made my bed with fresh sheets
-cleaned a few more sections of the bathroom floor (I'm attacking the stubborn spots which get on bathroom tiles that have pocked surfaces/grout--this is an ongoing process which is now almost complete)
-laundered old sheets, rags from cleaning bathroom, etc.
-did three sets of plank pose
-responded to two emails that I've been putting off responding to
-watched the latest Downton Abbey and then called my mother as promised (Downton Abbey I CANNOT QUIT YOU <3)
-ran the dishwasher
-went through a big backlog of translator blog posts I'd neglected reading recently
And earlier this weekend I taught two Japanese lessons, did the grocery shopping, ate some truly excellent chocolate, and finished filling out a creative brief for the artist who will be designing my new logo.
Is this everything I could possibly have done? No. Or even everything I ambitiously wanted to/thought I should do when the weekend began? No--I didn't get in a yoga workout. Did I drink my 8 glasses of water both days? Sadly, no. But it is a perfectly reasonable weekend. It included both chores and leisure. I did everything I was 100% responsible to others for doing by the end of the weekend (client job & Japanese lessons).
So my knee-jerk reaction is, "The bathroom floor looks so nice but now I can't stop noticing that the mirror is all streaked, and I can say I did the planks but I didn't do a real workout, and I didn't fold all the clothes, just some of them, and I haven't emptied the dishwasher, and think of all those long-term personal projects still not complete gaaaaah"--but I am going to sternly say no. Instead of surrendering to the never-enough-ness and forfeiting any happiness, I'm going to do exactly what I'm doing, namely write a list of what I did, acknowledge that what I did mattered and it was good, acknowledge that adult humans have the right to play on the weekend, and in fact *I* have the right to play on the weekend, and in fact it is good for us to rest and not Do Things, and if I want to lie in bed and whack stuff with a key I can choose to think of that as being avoidant or procrastinating or some other negative thing that's not what I "should" be doing, but I can also with equal validity choose to think of it as, you know, a thing that I am doing because I feel like it and it is an OK thing for me to do.
So ha. I did some stuff, and while I acknowledge it was not All The Stuff or even maybe Enough Stuff To Satisfy My Grandmother, it was reasonable. I am not lazy and bad even if I lounged around for a while and left my apartment a mess. Come to think of it, I may not be bad even if I am lazy. Huh. I am going to try to believe that it is Enough, or that "enough-ness" doesn't maybe have to be the scale I work from.
Because it's definitely not Not Enough. Never-enough-ness is a lie and this weekend was by no means Not Enough.