I have vanquished the day off
I used to be scared and overwhelmed of these days, and there's plenty of proof of that in this very blog. I still have bouts of anxiety whenever I have a day where I'm all alone, with nothing but my own ego to hold me accountable. I'm actually quite good at forgiving myself for the days where I do nothing, where I wake up late, potentially hung over, and do the bare minimum so that I don't completely hate myself.
I'll be honest, I just came off a week of that. Ashley and I took the week to go on two mini vacations, on which I did anything but crush it. The only thing I did crush was the wine or beers we kept having. Maybe it was the vacation that gave me the urgency that I felt today.
If I'm being even more honest, I didn't even have that incredible of a day. I woke up at 9am, showered and went to the gym, did laundry, went food shopping, and cooked dinner. The laundry I had is lying in my living room, unfolded, yet the feeling of accomplishment is still washing over me. I still have more to do, for sure. Then again, I'll always have more to do. I guess the game becomes having the energy to do those things, as well as actually enjoying the chores in real time. I'm starting to get glimpses of all of this, with moments like this of self reflection and honestly saying "It feels good to live this way."
But this is a day off, and I'm inspired to admit to myself that I want every day to be like this. An obvious goal, a dream shared by plenty of people I'm sure.
Maybe not every day though, shit, I don't know.
The more I think about it, the more I realize how inconsistent I feel about any of this. Currently I feel pretty great, let's just set that in stone. I think any day with exercise and healthy eating, plus making my own meal, is a day ought to be replicated.
There's good and bad to that inconsistency, though, like it's good how I'm slowly starting to increase the 'floor' of what makes a productive day, or how I change up my morning habits for the better because a random book told me to. Then the bad inconsistencies, the scary ones, where I seemingly change my career goals every month or so. Or that, for some reason out of my control, tomorrow might end up being a total crap shoot because hey, I had a good day on Monday!
Maybe I'm putting too much pressure on myself, but that doesn't sound quite right. It took a little bit of pressure (or willpower) to turn today into what it was, and now I'm happily typing along without a shred of stress nagging at me. Maybe I just don't fully understand all of the factors that motivate me at one given time, and so when the pieces come together and form a "productive" afternoon I can only look to a decision or two that lead to that outcome, and that means I give those decisions too much credit.
Or maybe it's much simpler than I make it all out to be, and that healthy diet and exercise really do give you more energy, and when I make the small yet significant decision to go to the gym and have salad for lunch that the rest of the day is much easier to pull off. That sounds right. It's a thesis, I guess.
The scary part is when that isn't enough, when the momentum wears off or some cosmic alignment doesn't work in my favor, and I realize that there's a limit to our willpower and sometimes we gotta eat shit from time to time. Realistically, when I'm reading the words as they're coming out, that's not that scary. But it certainly is confusing.
I think the really shitty part, when I try my absolute best to be as self-critical as possible, is realizing that there's still not much that's really produced. Like yes, I wrote this blog, and I'm about to record an episode of "The Wannabes", but there's still something that I need to work on without knowing exactly what it is. That might be the next step for me. I need to write something real, something that can be made, something that will actually fulfill me creatively. That is the work that will advance my life, not just burn off vacation calories, clean my clothes, or prepare food for the week.
So, fuck, I scared myself. I didn't know there was anything to be scared of going into this. I genuinely thought I would sit here and marvel at my massively successful Monday... but, no, I guess that's not where I'm at. I need to find a project, something that will convert the energy from the gym and salad and turn it into real, creative fulfillment.
That's when I can have a 'perfect day.' Anything less might as well be a waste of time.
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