Back in December, I hit the pause button on some of my personal and professional projects with the intention of returning to them in the new year feeling rested and reinvigorated. That’s… not what happened.
It’s now almost March and there are so many things I should have resumed by now that instead remain dormant. There was no rest. There was no relaxation. I can’t believe what a terrible blur the last few months have been.
There are moments that snap everything into focus — the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, a health scare, etc. Events that instantly separate everything in your life into one of two columns: The Things That Actually Matter and… everything else.
When that happens, I usually don’t have a lot of time for the stuff in column B. And I’m grateful for that. It’s a sobering reminder of how ephemeral most of the things I worry about day-to-day really are. But I also sometimes experience a different reaction to one of those events. Occasionally, I get completely paralyzed with fear over all of the potential negative outcomes.
That’s why (aside from this newsletter), some of you haven’t heard much from me lately. I was presented with the possibility of something big and scary and my response was to hibernate inside a cocoon of worst-case scenarios.
But that’s not how it felt to me at the time. In my mind, I was just putting all the other stuff in my life on hold in order to deal with something more important. Once that was behind me, then I could return to my regularly scheduled programming. Okay, sure. But here’s the problem — there wasn’t anything I could actually do. Except wait. Which is mostly what I’ve been doing these past few months. Waiting to see how things would turn out.
And because I wasn’t staying busy or out there living my life, I had a lot of time to conjure imaginary monsters. Each one representing a different worst-case scenario. How could I possibly think about anything else when one of those beasts was out there wreaking havoc? So I’d get completely fixated on whether or not I’d be able to slay that particular giant or if I’d just wind up getting crushed by it. And then eventually someone would step in to say, “Actually Don Quixote, that’s a windmill.”
Instead of feeling any sense of relief, I’d just scan the horizon until I spotted another rampaging giant. Maybe this big scary possibility is off the table, but what about that one over there? Shouldn’t someone do something about that giant? And off I’d go again.
All of this worrying brought my productivity to a standstill. Good habits were replaced by bad ones and I was suddenly spending a lot of time on things I usually avoid. Like social media. And as I was scrolling through Twitter one afternoon, I came across this quote:
“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”
- Annie Dillard
I’d seen it before, but seeing it in that context… it just made me feel so ashamed. What was I doing? How many days in a row was this that I’d just spent dicking around with nothing to show for it?
But I’ve always done this. If I’m not careful, I’ll spend my life jumping from one crisis to the next. And if there isn’t a problem, I’ll create one. Never mind the imaginary giants, that was the actual opponent here. That’s the demon I should have been fighting.
It’s not like some of my concerns weren’t legitimate, but that wasn’t an excuse to start treating my own existence so passively. There were still plenty of things in that first column I should have been showing up for. I thought I was just hitting the pause button, but that’s not how it works. There is no pause button. That regularly scheduled programming just keeps running whether you’re paying attention to it or not.
There will always be another giant on the horizon. Real or imagined. You can’t let those steal all of your focus, will, or agency. Losing control over one area of our lives doesn’t mean we have to surrender all of it.
Speaking of quotes I’ve seen hundreds of times that just hit extra hard right now…earlier this week, James Clear’s newsletter had this one attached to it:
"One day you will wake up and there won’t be any more time to do the things you’ve always wanted. Do it now." - Paulo Coelho
Take care, friends. Talk to you soon.
Revisited this one as I am feeling some type of way lately. I don't know if it's going to make sense or seem related, but I often feel like I'm split between two worlds, or rather voices. One voice aware of how fragile and short life is, so it's almost inspiring to just say "Hey, if you wanna do the thing, just do it, who cares," and the second voice that contrasts, "Oh, you're doing a thing, who cares." And that second voice is so much louder, because it's just convincing me that what I'm doing isn't important, it's terrible, it's been done before and better, yada yada yada. So my solution to quiet that voice, is to focus on things I'm not really into doing, but would convince myself that "hey, at least you're doing something productive." Common example is telling myself on a given day/night, "Ok, gonna spend some time writing now. Gonna put in the hours and focus." Five minutes later of glaring at a blank screen, or a premise I've convinced myself is no longer interesting anymore because I've stared at it for so long, I'll then say "ok, I'll get to work, but after I put in this load of laundry, or after I cook this meal, or after I make this phone call to check in on whoever." And while, yes, laundry, cooking, etc, those are necessary things to do to be a functional human being, the reality is I'm using these chores as excuses to avoid working on what I really want to work on, (fighting the giant that really needs to be put down), because it requires me to be vulnerable with the desire to share and the fear of rejection.
I don't know if this makes sense or is relatable, but that was my takeaway. Thank you again Chris for putting these out.
Read this on Sunday, not commenting until today because frankly this post hollowed me out emotionally. I still don't have anything substantial to add really. There's real wisdom in your post but honestly I just wish you weren't going through the shit right now. Been listening to you a lot recently and that parasocial bug has burrowed itself deep and I just wish I could offer some comfort to you like I would a friend. Hope you're doing okay, at the very least I'm glad you've taken something constructive from this.
Take care bud.