
This morning while peeing I found myself zoning out, thinking: If I wake up earlier, I can finish my work earlier. And then I can have some daylight to go out and frolic in.
While sitting there thinking this, I felt a very grounded sort of happiness — similar to suddenly being able to make sense of and solve a math problem. It was a moment of clarity and satisfaction.
If I do x… it will solve for y.
My “Y” was my penchant for wasting time, for dragging out tasks in a procrastinatory way and almost gleefully welcoming distraction, because in my mind I had “all day” to get it done.
I knew I was wasting my own time, and I was so frustrated with myself when I glanced at the bottom of my computer screen (after hours of mindless Youtube flittering) and realized that it was officially already the next day… and I still hadn’t completed the work I’d scheduled for myself.
After struggling with identity disturbance my whole life, being disappointed in myself is a very, very familiar feeling.
But now I notice that my disappointment doesn’t concern how my boyfriend (or my parents, friend, or any other person) may feel about me. It's not about them.
I am disappointed with ME.
Yes, of course my work does affect others because my creative output reaches people. So that definitely is part of my disappointment.
But most of it is about being appalled at how I’m spending my own life — me sitting inside all day, telling myself I’m doing hard work while browsing on Amazon and rummaging through the dregs of Youtube for something that inspires me enough to stop procrastinating.
Yet, weirdly, it feels almost good to be fed-up with myself in a way that pertains purely to my own preferences. After all the years of it always being about someone else, it feels healthy to be wrapped up in my own self-concerns.
This dissatisfaction isn't out of a desperation to please or impress anyone else. It's to make me happier with me.
Because what I really want is a LIFE.
Which translates as: Wow, wouldn’t it be crazy if I could just get my work done in the morning hours, then have the rest of the day to actually live in the world, and then go to bed feeling like I seized and honored the day, rather than throwing my hours down the toilet and ending up feeling like shit?
I would love to be able to do that for myself.
So then I flushed the toilet and got to work writing this piece — all while thinking about how good it’ll feel to get everything done waaaay ahead of schedule (aka: actually on time…the very idea) and then getting to have a life for the rest of the day.
This post isn’t about time management and motivation.
It’s about me being solidly in my own head and my own life.
It's quiet and straightforward up here.
There isn’t any extra mental babble: “Imagine how impressed my boyfriend will be if I’m so productive! He’ll be so inspired and attracted to me, and then I’ll feel so good about myself! Ok yes, I have to stay on schedule so he’ll see disciplined I am, and I'll be SO LOVED!!”
There isn’t the familiar rising tension in my shoulders of me being intently hellbent on becoming better for someone else.
My mind isn’t starting to obsess over this new routine, thinking that it's Thee Answer to all my problems. I'm not seeing it as the One Final Thing that will make everything perfect and cure me of all my emptiness and inner-insufficiency.
Oh yes, the desire to change is there — hardcore.
But my mind is clear (I care about my own wellbeing). My heart is grounded (it’s not looking for a quick-fix ego-boost). My body is reasonably relaxed (I’m not tensed up in eagerness to enact this change and get external-validation).
It isn’t the usual high of chasing self-worth in someone else’s eyes, or desperately craving “self-improvement” out of needing a new sparkly strawberry-scented band aid to hide my inner shame and emptiness beneath.
Instead it’s simply: I want things to be different for myself. Oh…a possible solution! Nice. I’m gonna try that.
No one else is taking up space in my head but myself.
I'm not super self-consciously seeing my value through someone else's eyes.
No one else’s voice is lecturing me about why I “should” be doing something differently, in the name of being more appealing to others.
I’m not desiring change out of a need to distract myself from my own inner emptiness.
It's simply me being concerned with me…then deciding to do something different for myself. So that I can have a better life, today.
And enjoying the grounded feeling of being IN myself…rather than being focused on how this will help me win/achieve/earn something OUT there.
This is the best way I can explain the "after" feeling of building a solid identity.
It’s still full of human struggles, self-disappointment, and craving to change in attempt to feel better.
But it’s not in some chaotic, desperate, “this will be the magical fix, I know it!”, escape-myself-at-all-costs way.
It’s grounded. It’s self-contained. It’s practical.
It’s the way I always — unbeknownst to me — actually wanted to feel.
It feels “normal”.
And of course, it feels kinda dull compared to chasing the high.
But this is what it truly feels to be healthier and stronger from the inside-out.
It feels unremarkable, yet also an incredibly significant achievement.
And that’s the difference.
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