There are days that I feel like I have no idea what I want or where I want to go. We wrap so much of our identity up in “what we do.” At a certain age the constant conversation with new and old friends revolves around the work we’re currently doing or plan on completing. What happens when you’re not 100% sure about what you want to do or if you want to keep doing what it feels like you’ve always done? Now who the hell are you? How do you hold the conversation without some epic truth of your life being extraordinary?
I think we tend to put a lot of unnecessary pressure on ourselves to perform. Not only a performance in the conversation with others but also with ourselves. I feel like I’m always asking myself the question, “….but what more can I do or could have been done?” Listen, there are just some days that you’re not going to be able to get yourself to do what you know needs done. Simply, sometimes that feeling of not feeling like it will win and you wont do it. You have to let yourself off the hook and forgive yourself for being human. None of us are machines. Some days will come that our feelings overpower us and the drive we need to get important things done is simply vanquished to those feelings.
This isn’t the problem.
The problem is that we don’t forgive ourselves. We keep beating ourselves up for that lost day of the work that should have been done, the miles that should have been run, the chapters that should have been read… If we can forgive ourselves for those “should-have-been” days, then we’re likely to have less of them.
It happens this way… What was really only supposed to be a “didn’t-feel-like-it” day, compounds and multiplies itself into “why-didn’t-I-do-what-I-had-to-do-I’m-so-disappointed-in-myself” days. It’s hard enough to find that grit within yourself to win the days that you don’t feel like winning, but when that “I-didn’t-feel-it” day is coupled with a few “I-suck” days… that’s when we’re in trouble. That’s when dreams really do cease. That’s when books aren’t written, symphonies aren’t orchestrated, degrees are not sought… That’s when hearts begin to die.
It isn’t just the day that I dropped the ball… it’s the coming days that I don’t stop beating myself up about it that really fuck me up.
Please forgive yourself. Please love yourself.
Get my new book here: Blog Book vol.2: The Demons We Meet
