Restlessness follows
I woke up anxious this morning. I've grown disinterested and incurious in my work. When I'm in this state, restlessness follows.
20 years ago, a teacher said that I spoke only when I wanted to. 15 years ago, a manager said that I couldn't be made to do something I didn't want to do, and if it's something I wanted to do, I'd do it even if I weren't paid to. 10 years ago, a manager said that I liked to be challenged. Five years ago, my mother-in-law asked my husband how I was doing, and he said I was a little stressed with work, but that was how I liked to be. These words have informed how I see myself.
The best way to compliment me is to tell me I'm productive and competent, that I helped in some way. Nothing fulfills me more.
I keep going back to Simple Sabotage Field Manual:
Purposeful stupidity is contrary to human nature.
What strikes me most is how it characterizes people — our tendency to protect, cooperate, and contribute — how difficult it would be to convince us to behave otherwise.
When I was learning English as a child, one of the first sentences I wrote was, "My dad is lazy." We were told to write about our families. When my teacher saw my sentence, she gasped. It wasn't that my dad was lazy. He just told me he'd take me places and didn't follow through; he sat in bed drinking, watching TV instead. He worked 70-hour weeks and it was his only break. What did I know then?
I've never known a lazy person in my life. I have only known people who wished they could do more, be more than what they were — each haunted by what they saw as their limitations holding them back. Always striving. Learning to be kinder to themselves.
Years ago an old man came to speak to me when I stepped out of my car. I saw a spray bottle and towel in his hands. He said that he had a family of seven and rent was due soon and he wanted to clean my windshield for spare change. It was a hot day and he'd been standing out in the sun waiting for cars. I told him I was heading to the bank and that I'd pull out a little extra for him, that he didn't have to wash my windshield. But he insisted and proceeded to do so.
I think one of the most discourteous things we can do to ourselves and others is to assume we aren't already giving our best. I think that if there were more that we could do, we would already be doing it. I'm talking about capacity.
An old doodle (2016 June 15):
i was thinking: each day, your energy capacity changes.
and each day, you give your best effort.
when i was thinking about you, i imagined test tubes
of varying sizes each filled to the brim.
i thought it was nice.
As I woke up, my heart beat faster and my internal voice spoke louder. It didn't last long — but it prompted a question: what's wrong? Nothing. Nothing is wrong. I just don't know how to be comfortable with being unproductive.