An Update and An Idea
There are many things that have been going well — I got a new job apprenticing with a woodworker I am friends with from Jiu-Jitsu. Eiji makes custom cabinetry, kitchens, doors, and closets (and many more things, but that’s what I’ve been privy to thus far). I am astounded at the amount of steps and skills it takes to select a board and make it ready for high-quality work. It makes me think we should all be building these things:
because the number of industries and amount of labor going into making straight lines during construction is absolutely insane. It also contributes to our myopia and who knows what other things. I can think of at least two book references I am too lazy to look for now regarding how straight lines and flat walls have changed our brains.
But, I am learning a skill and it’s awesome and my boss is great and I get to work with my hands and I’m making money doing it. Wins.
For a while I was also working out more, as Eiji the woodworker is very fit and I was tagging onto his exercise coattails for a little while, before my body said absolutely not we do not want to keep getting up to exercise at 6am. It informed me by crashing so hard I rather suddenly couldn’t stand up straight without pain and had trouble breathing from a diaphragm spasm, but epsom salt baths, breathing, and sleeping for almost an entire day got me back.
This increase in masculine (energy) activity led to an intentional increase in feminine energy activities, and I’ve been thriving with seeing girlfriends more often, going to the Korean spa, yeah - generally just increasing my time with women.
On the other hand, my time is more compressed than I’ve experienced in some years. With taking care of a few of Vern’s needs, the cats in the apartment, Maggie, and myself, plus working and training Jiu-Jitsu a few times a week still, I’m almost up to half the amount of things some of you do every week!
I feel it.
I have gone to bed too late and woken up too early (not 6 am early, but not enough sleeping in for my subjective need) often lately, with a discomforting feeling chasing me of dissatisfaction and doing too many things I “need to” instead of what feels truly valuable to me throughout the week.
I will often get home with the intention to relax as much as I can, for example, but after I get “a few things done.”
Which usually ends up with me cooking, then cleaning up cooking, walking the dog, noticing things that need cleaning, and then not even finishing them before I look at the clock and despair that it is too late to do the relaxing I really wanted to, something that felt valuable to me.
Maybe you do this with some different activity you’ve been meaning to prioritize and frequently say you “need to start soon.”
My mind was having more trouble not doing things lately.
I got fed up enough to shift to doing what I wanted to do, first.
The world didn’t fall apart, and I have options about how and when I get things done I might not have thought about without the break.
I came home and went directly to the bathroom and took a bath with candles and salt and music that I like.
There is always the chance that things won’t go as smoothly around the stuff you want to do once you do try it. It won’t feel right, or you’ll sabotage a little bit one way or another, but you still did it, even if you did it poorly. I scrolled on my phone (not actually relaxing for me) before wrenching it away from myself long enough to put on this music
and dancing while lying in the bath, ecstatically enjoying the feeling of the water sloshing over and around me as I moved.
Is my life fixed? Not yet.
Do I feel like I have less of the gnawing agony of “I wISH I DID THIS THING I KEEP NOT DOING THE THING I WANT TO DO” “WHY IS IT SO LATE?” Yes. It is so nice, too.
Most people need to learn how to relax. Try relaxing first, before doing the things you need to do. I wonder how it will go for you. Or doing whatever priority has been laid by the wayside in favor of needs. It’s like that thing where people forget to do what makes life worth living in favor of everything that doesn’t make them feel like life is worth living. One thing moved to the front of the schedule that you just want to do won’t kill you.