February 2021
The 1st.
Today was a lot of team communication and sales communication. Which is the most important part of my job in many respects, so it’s fine. But it’s not what I feel called to do. And that’s okay. I just do need to find time for the stuff that makes me me, and I haven’t been doing much of that lately.
What do I need right now though? Part of me is stressed about how we make our revenue. I’m worried we don’t have enough hours to sell for the next few months, with one of our developers on vacation. I’m worried that we’re not getting enough high-value projects in the door.
None of those things I really have control over. But I can impact and influence them.
The 2nd.
Man. All I want to do is play solitaire lately and I legit don’t even care. It’s so strangely satisfying. And also hard. Spider solitaire is no joke.
The 3rd.
I can’t tell if solitaire is ruining my life. Ever since I started playing it, I’ve spent much less time reading, learning, and doing other immersive activities for myself. But also it’s been a stressful couple of weeks so I don’t know if I can connect the solitaire with that. Four out of our five kids have COVID now.
The 5th.
I really don’t feel good. And yet my COVID tests keep coming back negative. I’m going to proceed as if I’m fine.
It’s strange how anticipating something changes how you feel. I mean, I may be fighting a cold, but the overall listlessness could be stress/anticipation of having COVID. It’s just taking up a lot of headspace that I’d rather focus on my actual needs and priorities.
The 28th.
“Our consciousness rarely registers the beginning of a growth within us any more than without us: there have been many circulations of the sap before we detect the smallest sign of the bud.” —Silas Marner by George Eliot
This month has been a lot, and I’ve not wanted to do much. I want to recover my sense of hopefulness and expansiveness…of wanting to do things and go places and be engaged. I want to recover my sense of joy and anticipation and aliveness.
I’m in this long process of resetting the way I approach my life. It’s hard. I have been so hard-core “productivity” my whole life without even noticing it, maximizing my time and energy as much as I could in search of this elusive “freedom” where I get to choose.
It never really works out that way. At least when the chooser measures her life by how well she has chosen.
Anyway, I’m shifting. Things are changing within and without. It is slow. Sometimes I have to sit on my hands and not do the thing that is so natural for me to do in order to find a new way.