A few years ago, I started tracking my own movements in a journal. In the mornings I’d write down what I planned to do that day, and at night I’d write down what I’d done. This practice was impassive and dispassionate—only slightly less dead-eyed than a to-do list or a time card. Emotional excavation was prohibited. I didn’t even check to see if, by the end of the day, I’d done what I’d planned. The goal was only to pull myself out of my head and into the position of observing the tangible contents of my life: getting a coffee, reading a book, going to the post office, doing yoga, cleaning the kitchen. From the inside of my depressive slump, I simply needed proof that things were happening. That I was capable of imagining things for myself and also doing them.
I did this for exactly the amount of time that it brought me comfort, which was about one month. When I started feeling better and the journaling started feeling like a chore, I stopped. There was a brief period where I wondered if I should keep at it by force. Sometimes I would revisit the journal for a day and then forget about it again. But ultimately I decided that the record-keeping was a practice best kept in abeyance, to be picked up only when my mood required it. A short-term habit. This is not a very popular idea. Common wisdom says that an unsustainable routine is a fool’s errand, relegated to the cursed realm of the crash diet. Instead we ought to focus on consistency and longevity. But sometimes that feels out of step with human nature, which ebbs and flows, requiring different things at different times, and what then?
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that modern self-improvement discourse bifurcates behaviors along similar, i.e. moralizing, lines: You’re either doing well or slipping up. Staying the course or falling off the wagon. Being “well,” eating “clean”—there’s a very puritanical undercurrent to it. Even the more compassionate approaches can hint at this good-bad binary: Forgive yourself for failing; you can’t do everything all the time; lapses happen. But these notions are still preoccupied with one-dimensional movement, however slow. And I wonder if by assuming growth is always the goal, we become too fixated on measuring our progress (or berating our lack of it), when we could be assessing our rhythm. Our ability to not just accept but embrace the animating tension of our shifting wants, needs, and abilities.
Sometimes we only need to do something for a while. Journal for a while. Meal plan for a while. Practice an art form for a while, then put it aside for something else, like going on walks. It’s perfectly natural to try things out, see how they feel, and revisit them later when the conditions of our lives call for them. Why not regard our habits and ways of being the same way we regard our other cyclical needs, like sleep, food, activity, and rest? Just as sleep and wakefulness are opposed but equally vital, the opposite of a good habit doesn’t have to be a bad one. It can just be something different, for a different aim, or a different you. In the context of self-improvement, we often use “growth” and “evolution” synonymously, but they’re not the same. Evolution isn’t about achieving our final form, but adapting to our circumstances, ad infinitum.
Reframing my vicissitudes in these terms has shifted my self-regard. A hyper-productive day is not the result of discipline or “being good” of but giving myself enough rest.
I’ve spent 2022 writing on a strict schedule, neglecting my relationship, my family and friends. I’ve woken up at 6 am to write, attend to my day job and collapse in bed after an evening of workouts. Soon, things started falling apart in quick succession. I sprained my ankle, I began snapping at my partner, I was disinterested in work, my baseline anxiety spiked, I began judging myself harshly. On one hand, I finished 8/9 chapters of the second revision of my book but on the other hand, I crashed and burnt. I’ve spent the last two days putting my retainers with clients on pause, reassessing my commitment to my several creative projects, trying to assess what they eventually contribute to my life. The answers have been uncomfortable but necessary.
Close your eyes and imagine two doors. Beyond one door is you, suffering, dying, unhappy, regretting everything that didn’t go right in your life. Behind the other door is you, on your deathbed but you feel a sense of serenity, of joy, you have few regrets, you’re fulfilled. Now, hold these two images in your mind and think of five qualities you wish to infuse in your life and five wishes you want fulfilled before you die.
The thought of death is an interesting temperature check. I turn thirty in two months and death is not something that preoccupies my mind. Ageing does. So, I wonder if investing thousands of rupees in expensive skincare will help in alleviating the finality of mortality but if I do allow myself to explore the contours of death, the final cessation of all wants, needs, frustrations, desires, hopes and dreams, it’s actually a bit easier to live. I’m more forgiving of myself.
The last two weeks, I haven’t maintained a steady writing practise, but I have been in better touch with my family and friends. These trade-offs give my life texture. Many of the things I love are necessarily oppositional; effort and ease, breadth and depth, fall and spring. It’s not actually possible to pursue them at the same time. There is no one aim, or one habit, to fix everything. Nothing is fixed, and that’s the point.
Joaquín Sorolla, The Beach in Valencia
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Love this..
"And I wonder if by assuming growth is always the goal, we become too fixated on measuring our progress (or berating our lack of it), when we could be assessing our rhythm. Our ability to not just accept but embrace the animating tension of our shifting wants, needs, and abilities."
This so resonates with me right now...this idea to a) notice the shifting wants needs and abilities but to be a tuned to how to respond or not to this new awareness. And for me it's about it's okay to change my mind, my direction my output. When I was younger I was so fixated on finishing and doing everything I promised to others that the last five years I've been trying to focus on doing and finishing things for myself... but then getting caught in the same loop of sticking with something that might not be working any longer and should be discarded... like your journalling.
Thanks for the insights...