March 2020
The 4th.
“To resist change, to try to cling to life, is therefore like holding your breath: if you persist you kill yourself.” —Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity
My energy is so finite. I wish I spent more time thinking about projects I want to do for myself. But my life is full. Everything is geared toward the pragmatic. Even my self-care is pragmatic because it is for prolonging my energy. And I barely do enough of that.
Oh well. That is the season of my life. At some point I will be in a season when investing in my creativity makes sense. Right now it would just feel like pouring water into an overflowing cup. Now it is the season of investing in my career and financial health and investing in my children. Prior to that it was the season of investing in a new relationship. Prior to that it was the season of wrestling with my previous relationship and leaving it and trying to mitigate the damage. Prior to that was the season of investing in recovering my career and financial stability. Prior to that it was the season of joining a team, and then leaving it. Prior to that it was the season of moving and moving and moving. Prior to that it was the season of homeschooling and team-building. Prior to that it was the season of babies and starting Internet businesses. Prior to that was the season of interminable school attempts and tedious jobs. Prior to that it was the season of leaving my parents and getting married and loneliness. Prior to that it was the season of social anxiety and juvenile delinquency. Prior to that it was the season of moving to the big city. Prior to that it was the season of idyllic smalltown life. Prior to that it was the season of moving and living with grandparents. Prior to that it was the season of West Washington Street terror. Prior to that I was born.
That is my whole life. It has been mostly stressful. But also I have discovered my strength and resilience. And I continue to move closer and closer to what is true.
I still have a long way to go, but I guess that’s what’s great about life. There is always something else around the corner. Which I guess is why it’s good to practice being okay with whatever situation you find yourself in, and not to be afraid of it. Because if you’re afraid of the bad, hard stuff, you’re afraid of your whole life.
I don’t know why I have this driving need for my life to feel almost impossible. I think it’s because I love to learn and grow and I will always stretch myself as far as I can to do that.
The 10th.
This COVID-19 thing is getting pretty scary. It’s impossible to know the impact on health, safety, and the economy. There’s not a whole lot we can do, and yet it’s hard to think about anything else.
The 15th.
It is so strange to be waiting for this pandemic to reach the Tri-Cities. If everyone is staying home it seems like it will have little chance of spreading viciously. But I imagine not everyone is staying home. I imagine we are in the minority, even though schools and churches have closed.
The 16th.
“…for they are but men huddling together and shouting to give themselves courage in the dark.” —Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity
I deleted social media from my phone. It only took a few days for me to be zombied out by it. It’s hard not to look though. I want to know how it’s spreading in the U.S. and where the tide of public opinion is moving. But Adam will know those things. I don’t need to proactively seek it out.
I definitely feel an underlying anxiety about the uncertainty of everything. I know I need to focus on my mental health and doing things that are nourishing.
The 18th.
“Consciousness seems to be nature’s ingenious mode of self-torture.” —Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity
Man, it’s almost 11:30 and I have done nothing today. Except cry and try to open up dialogue with the team on our role during this crisis. I’ve thought about what we could do as far as opening up dialogue with our community. I feel both like we should do something to help, and also like…what are the needs? How can we listen? Maybe I should give my book away? Maybe we could open up applications to the class we’re running? What is helpful?
And then there is this whole reluctance that I feel toward participating in this very public conversation. When everyone’s talking about something or participating in something, I shrink away from it. I don’t know what that’s about; I think it’s that I’m protecting myself from getting overwhelmed by the needs of so many.
I feel totally jostled today though. I knew what we were doing and where we were going, and that vision feels completely irrelevant to the context we’re in right now. That is the biggest thing. How do we respond? And the answer is I just don’t know. Everything has been flipped on its head.
I feel really helpless. It feels so horrible to just move forward with business as usual while people are afraid.
The 19th.
What a bizarre turn of events. Who would have known we would be experiencing this right now? We have so little control.
I need to get out of the mindless phone trap I’ve been in. It doesn’t feel great. As hard as it is to sit with my feelings, I think I need to actually process them and not numb out.
The 20th.
”For change is not merely a force of destruction. Every form is really a pattern of movement, and every living thing is like the river, which, if it did not flow out, would never have been able to flow in.” —Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity*
I finally was able to order some groceries. Who knows how much of what I ordered will actually be available. And fresh food is so hard to get right now, especially meat. Staples like rice and beans are getting difficult to find, too.
My weekly planning is all out the window. It’s almost time to plan for another week and I’ve barely done anything on this week’s list.
I did write an email announcement about the Gather the Courage audio series I spontaneously made. I don’t know how good it was, but it was sincere. I really don’t have many words right now.
We have so little control over what tomorrow will bring. Might as well just be ourselves and let the chips fall where they may. Hopefully our services will be in demand as people more toward doing everything online, but who knows? No one does.
I’m starting to feel tired and achey. I hope I’m not coming down with COVID. Man, there are so many things to freak out about.
The 21st.
Well, now I have some sort of cough thing. But no fever. Hopefully it stays that way. I can’t imagine getting sick on top of everything else.
What a giant mess all this is. I have such an urge to jump in and do something. I mean, Adam and I spontaneously started a podcast today. That's something.
As uncomfortable as it is, I probably just need to sit with the discomfort of my own thoughts. My brain is full speed ahead, and at the same time, it’s so difficult to focus on anything. I haven’t even been reading because I can’t keep my mind still. Every little thing distracts my thoughts in some other direction.
Usually I’m so intentional about how I spend my time, but intentionality is very hard right now. Considering anything carefully and with awareness feels like it costs more than I have to give.
That’s why habits are beneficial, even though I’m so bad at continuing to do something by rote. Habits let you do a thing without the friction of being intentional about it, and then you have that time and willpower to spend on things that are worth being intentional about. Autopilot can be a great thing if you’re steered in the direction you want to go.
Too bad I didn’t already have many habits in place before all this happened. Now’s definitely not the time to build them.
The 22nd.
I don’t know how we’re going to close our revenue gap this month. It requires us to grow, and right now the whole world is treading water. I don’t feel great about the potential. I think we need to find ways to cut costs, as hard as that might be. Maybe a furlough, ugh. I need to ask Eric for some numbers.
The 26th.
“We have allowed brain thinking to develop and dominate our lives out of all proportion to ‘instinctual wisdom,’ which we are allowing to slump into atrophy. As a consequence, we are at war within ourselves—the brain desiring things which the body does not want, and the body desiring things which the brain does not allow; the brain giving directions which the body will not follow, and the body giving impulses which the brain cannot understand.” —Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity
I’ve been totally incapacitated emotionally this week. Tuesday I was in meetings all day communicating to the team about our new modified work week. Wednesday I was a total mess. Today I feel it all in my body, but I’m doing better. I did the decision-making around the stimulus package stuff, and I’m grateful we have another full paycheck at least.
I’m not going outside enough or taking enough walks. My body really needs to get out, but I have no desire to do anything other than play Animal Crossing.
The 29th.
We had such a great weekend with the kids. We mostly played Animal Crossing and ate good food. Now it’s quiet again. We are back in the world that seems to be falling apart and coming together at the same time. I don’t know if my brain works in this world yet. But we will see.
A big part of me is sad that we had so much momentum that was effectively halted by all of this. Another part of me knows that we will come out of it even stronger. It’s just so hard to experience this kind of worldwide pain. People say we will all appreciate our families more and our neighbors and our gatherings, but probably people find an equilibrium in every situation. However, massively traumatic events do have lasting impact. We just can’t know what it will be.
In any case, the whole world has gone mad in the past month and we are doing our best. I could have all the wisdom in the world and still be unable to execute any of it, and that’s okay.
The 30th.
My stress levels are so high. I need to bring them down if I’m ever going to have another strategic or creative thought again. There are a million things I could be doing, but all in all, I have so little creative energy that it would be spluttering fumes if I did.
I read today that the best medicine for anxiety is to take some action, however small. The action I need to take though is a big one—figuring out our direction. We have these objectives that feel so ancient. I don’t even know where to start. We have one month left in the quarter. I need to make a decision. Do we consider this quarter to be a wash? Do we try to re-assess our goals for the end of the month? Do we just get a head start on goals for next quarter? It all feels out of our hands, but also like we need to do something.
The 31st.
Adam and I published another podcast episode. About salmon?