When you actually get a moment to yourself, what do you do?
Do you optimise, or just do what you need to do. Including nothing.
It’s been a challenging few days. When Sarah left last week, or course one of the kids fell ill immediately. And then another child had a very painful earache on Saturday night. Both maladies have lingered on meaning less sleep for everyone. It is worse at night.
Once they have been upright again for an hour or so in the morning, various internal tubes in heads and chests drain meaning they are ok to do their usual routine. It all falls apart at about 4pm.
Anyway. Now that I have a moment to myself, I wonder what to do. I already missed making and posting a video on one of my YouTube channels this week. I’ve managed to keep up with my other Substack. But the urge to ‘be productive’ is strong.
The urge to optimise.
To output.
But, I can’t.
I’m here right now, writing to you, because I discovered the need to reflect on my need to produce. And I wondered if you felt the same, even though you may feel overloaded by the other travails of life and caring for others. Yes, being productive is necessary sometimes, but I often find myself sacrificing downtime or expansion time that I need to rest, recover, and explore.
I’m more drawn to the idea of exploring nowadays. I have spent too much time in expert mode and not enough in explorer in recent years.
I try to do this without any firm kind of map in my hand. I have some kind of dim directional awareness, but one that I try not to grip too tightly. One that remains true to the broader rhythms of north, south, sunrise and sunset. But enables me to notice, rather than bury my head and just … make … content.
I like documenting. But becoming more relational with my self again is a work in progress.
I wonder how much this is for you too?
Let me know if this resonates with you. I’ve finished my coffee, but I’ll be sipping my water here for another half hour or so before a walk in the sun.
If school or kindy doesn’t call first.
Why do we (I) feel guilty about doing nothing?!
There's a lot here that resonates with me. I crave time to myself, but when I get it I notice feeling like I must fill it with productivity. I'm working on allowing myself time to rest and reflect - and not seeing it as a 'write off', but an essential part of a productive and creative life; resting IS being productive.
I've found myself drawn to documenting, too, and am experimenting with documenting my life in the public space. It's nice keeping some documentation all to myself, though :)